In prepping my car for Road America, I decided to replace the rear rotors. When I took the caliper off, the pad material on one side fell out. It had become separated from the backing plate. See photo. You can see that the pad was in there and working even after the pad and plate separated, as evidenced by the lip on the top of the pad. Since I had a spare set of pads, I installed them on both sides before going to the DE.

I emailed Clark @ Apex Performance, where I had bought the pads, including a couple of photos. He immediately told me that he'd make this right. Since I had a set of pads, we agreed to bring this to the attention of PFC, which might take a little time.

I had several exchanges with Clark, and with Darrick - Director of Motorsports at PFC. PFC had me ship the pads back to them (on their dime). Darrick thinks that the pad material cracked, allowing water to get between the pad material and backing plate. The water boiled when the pad got hot, and caused the separation.

The replacement set of pads arrived today. Clark handled it with Darrick, and they took care of me. This is the way it's supposed to work: manufacturers stand behind their products, and vendors stand behind what they sell. I want to give a big thumbs up to Apex and PFC for being stand-up guys. They've earned my business and loyalty.



Jon

 

hmmm...has PFC seen this before? I have 4 events in the next two months and wouldn't want this to happen to my 08's.

 

They didn't say. But I am guessing that since we haven't heard about it before, and there are a lot of these out there, that it's pretty rare.

I always carry a spare set of pads when I go to a DE.

Jon

 

Funny coincidence, I also have recently had a minor problem with PFC. Clark @ Apex managed it and solved it and exceeded my expectations of what a vendor would do (because he was not involved directly in what went wrong, yet he still made it right)

Top people @ Apex. Highly recommend them.

 

This happened on my 996GT3 fronts using 08 pads, tech shop notified me buy couldn't say why. Had to replace, thought it was a 1 off, maybe there is something in this...

 

If you purchased PFC's from Clark you should have received a disclaimer email. Hopefully it is an isolated lot, date code that can be identified.

 

Clarke at Apex is awesome but remember the warranty is with the manufacture and not the dealer. Everything was handled perfectly due to Clarke's professional help....and this is why I shop with Apex Performance

 

+1 for Clarke at apex

 

+2 for Clarke at apex... I got the email yesterday.

 

My PFC08 always looked like that all the time... i talked to PFC they never got to me...good thing they got to you

 

Same happened to me with PFC 06's. In my case one pad self-destructed after separating during a DE and the other just fell apart when I removed it from the caliper. Luckily the pad grenaded at a lower speed versus at the end of a long straight. I was able to catch the car and avoid a crash.

Clarke took care of me right away, no questions asked. Great guy and businessman!!!

I am worried about it happening again though!! May go back to Pagids unless I hear something reasonable from PFC.

 

I have been racing for a very long time and I have always run Pagid race pads, except very early on when I ran Cool Carbon pads and had a very similar delamination of the friction material to what is described here. Fortunately, I didn’t hit anything. But with these reported delaminations of PFC pads I just don’t understand why everyone is focusing on giving such high marks to the supplier who sold them rather than the problem with pads themselves. If it were me I would be smokin’ hot and probably wouldn’t run that brand of pads again – EVER. This just shouldn’t happen – period.

Here is why a Pagid pad won’t delaminate compared to some other brands. Below is a copy of their technical information describing their backing plate design and friction material retention system:

"PAGID uses a unique and patented system to ensure the friction material does not delaminate from the steel backing plate. The friction material is attached to the backing plate in two ways, adhesive bonding and mechanical retention. The mechanical retention (patented) is accomplished by inserting brass torpedoes (studs) - which are welded onto the steel backing plate deep into the friction material. The brass torpedoes do not harm the brake disc (rotor). PAGID is the only race pad that features a retention system which not only connects the steel backing plate with the under-layer (adhesive bonding) but also with the friction material itself. It has turned out that this system, invented in the first place only for racing, has become also the best retention system for heavy truck and bus disc brake applications."

While it’s great that your supplier of PFC pads has stepped to the plate and replaced the pads – but what if it happens again. Then what? In the 17 years I have been racing on Pagid racing pads I have never heard of or seen a Pagid pad delamination. It’s no doubt because of the patented mechanical retention system that is used on all Pagid race pads. I know that PFC and most other race pad manufcturers use just the adhesive bonding method of keeping the friction material attached to the backing plate.

The bottom line is – Can you really afford to take the chance that the friction material could delaminate from the backing plate?

 

This worries me. I am on my first set of pfc's(06/01) after hearing good things about them. So far so good, but I may have to go back to pagid's.

 

There are guys on this forum that have been thru dozens of sets of PFC08 pads cumulative without incident... Just pointing out that whilst not ideal, this occurrence shouldn't be considered common just yet for those concerned...

 

+3 for Clark.