glap55

Curious if anyone has experienced some scary braking moments when the car has gotten very wet/washed and drove immediately.

The issue is particularly noticeable right after getting washed or if I’m first driving it after getting soaked in the rain. Car has 12k miles, been recently serviced and tires are good.

when the issue has occurred, The brakes seem to be non-existent and slowly come back on, but only after a few seconds of oh ****!

wondering if this is relatively normal for ceramics or if I need to get them checked out. I’m noticing it much more now that I’m driving it everyday (in Florida now but was in New York).

I appreciate the feedback. Thanks!

xstnte

Very normal. Be careful immediately after a wash or when the weather is cold. Try to warm up the brakes as very low speed and they’ll be back to correct grip levels quickly.

glap55

ok thanks! Weird that I didn’t experience this in just cold/snowy weather up in New York this winter. Had winter tires on and zero issues but just swapped summers in and came down to Florida. First real rain it saw and I almost went through an intersection. Appreciate the help.

worf928

Nothing to do specifically with ceramics. Steel brakes can suffer the same “wet moments.” Lots of factors involved.

A half-decade ago I had an Audi TTS where the steel brakes would get “wet” when driving in heavy rain. I trained myself to ‘pre-heat’ them periodically when driving in monsoons.

But, rule of thumb, after washing wheels always assume that the brakes need to be ‘heated’ once before they’ll work as-designed.

AlexCeres

If you just washed the car, you need to be really sure you got all the soap off. That’s a bad time with ceramics.

For cold and wet, they do one or the other. Both requires care and attention to put some heat into the brakes regularly. When the water is very cold, it can be difficult to keep the brake temperature up as cold water leaches heat from anything very quickly.

steels have the same problems, except then they rust.

AlexCeres

if it’s relatively dry, then it’s easy to put and keep heat in the brakes even if it’s very cold outside. But if they keep getting submerged or extremely wet, the water will keep sapping the heat out. Just like being outside yourself. Cold air and dry clothes is a very different problem than cold air and wet clothes

glap55

Yea that all makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot everyone!

FLCAYMAN

My steel rotors on the CGTS are the same way. After washing, and sitting for a day or more, the brakes are noisy and garbage for the first couple of miles. I’d imagine it’s all due to rust buildup on the faces. Obviously not rust on your PCCBs, but likely a similar scenario.