How Do Brakes Work

So to understand how are carbon ceramics superior to regular steel brakes, you do need to first understand how brakes work. So, as you put down your feet on the brake pedal, a hydraulic system pushes a liquid against the brake pads with the help of pistons, which then sandwich your car’s brake disc from both sides.

Why Do You Need an Upgrade?

So, you must be wondering why you need to upgrade to carbon ceramics as they are mostly a 5 to 10 grand option on most sports cars and SUVs. Well, Steel has two major issues under extreme scenarios that make it impractical to use in performance vehicles for its brake discs.

Disc Wear

The first being increased wear of steel discs under frequent braking. This is caused by increased temperatures which causes the steel discs to wear off much easier than its rival.

Stopping Distance

The second reason is that it does not do very well in dissipating heat in the air which causes steel discs to form a thin layer of gases on its surface, which reduces the friction between the pads and the discs under action.

This results in increased stopping distances and wear on the brake discs

Carbon Ceramic Brake Discs

Carbon ceramic brake discs were first used in concord Planes in 1979 to increase the lifetime of brake discs from 600 landings to 3000 of them. In cars, it was initially introduced in sports cars, but now you can also find them as an option in decent SUVs and other performance vehicles.

Carbon ceramic brake discs almost solve both of the issues related to steel discs. The carbon-ceramic disc has almost very minimal disc wear even under heavy usage, hence, stays strong for a good amount of time.

Carbon ceramic brakes also offer predictable braking behavior of a car even under frequent braking. Such a condition is mostly seen on racetracks, where cars have to excessively brake on each turn from considerably high speeds, under these conditions carbon ceramics were a must to have for the car to have a constant braking power. Some heavy vehicles also tend to prefer carbon ceramics even on a public road as due to their increased weight, frequent braking can lead to increased stopping distances on steel discs.

Conclusion

So, if you are either going for a sports car, a sports SUV or a crossover going for carbon ceramics is the more sensible choice. But if you are going with a lighter vehicle that will not be used on a track, steel brakes will be just fine for them.