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Motor 1
6 days ago
- Automotive
- Motor 1
Subaru Made the World's Only Twin-Turbo Flat-Four. It Was Madness
Subaru is conservative these days. It sticks with technologies it knows well, evolving its cars gradually over the years. Even when it does something new , it's often long after the rest of the industry. But in the 1990s, Subaru was gloriously weird and experimental. Witness Subaru's largely forgotten sequentially twin-turbocharged flat-four. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only twin-turbo gas-powered four-cylinder automotive engine. Some automakers have done twin-turbo four-cylinder diesels, and before you jump down my throat about it, BMW's "Twin-Power Turbo" engines use a single twin-scroll turbocharger. Not two turbochargers. So, Subaru stands alone here. Welcome to The Rabbit Hole , a bi-weekly column where Senior Editor Chris Perkins explores his latest obsession with automotive technology. He speaks to the best in the business to understand how cars work and what the future of the automobile looks like. Subaru introduced this twin-turbo boxer with the second-generation Legacy in 1993, when sequential turbocharging was all the rage. Porsche did sequential turbos first with the 959, and soon, other Japanese automakers embraced it. In the height of the asset-price bubble, the Japanese auto industry's R&D budgets ballooned, ushering in all sorts of new technologies, like sequential turbocharging. Toyota was first among Japanese automakers, with the Supra Turbo's 2JZ-GTE straight-six, then came Mazda with the 13B-REW twin-rotor in the RX-7. Photo by: Subaru The idea behind sequential twin turbocharging is simple. A small turbo spins up quickly, providing good low-RPM power and low lag, but runs out of puff at higher engine speeds; a large turbo takes time to spin up, manifesting in lag and a higher boost threshold, but with the benefit of better high-RPM performance. Sequential turbocharging attempts to provide the best of both worlds, with a smaller turbo optimized for lower engine speeds and a larger turbo optimized for high engine speeds. The first turbo covers everything from idle to somewhere around 3,500-4,500 rpm, at which point some exhaust air gets diverted to the second turbo. Eventually, both turbos are going at full steam, working together to provide high-rpm power. Subaru did things a bit differently. As the brochure for the 1993 Legacy notes, Subaru used two turbos of the same size to accomplish the same basic goal as other sequential turbo systems. To pre-spool the second turbo, the engine management system closes the first turbo's wastegate, later diverting excess exhaust gas to the second turbocharger. Then, as engine speeds climb, the system opens up a switching valve to the second turbocharger, now allowing both turbos to operate together. Photo by: Subaru A great post on the Subaru Legacy International forum details the EJ20 twin-turbo variants further. The turbos in all versions weren't identical, though they were always about the same size, and except for one later variant, the second turbocharger didn't have a wastegate. The initial twin-turbo boxer in the second-generation Legacy GT made 246 horsepower, and from 1996 on, Subaru offered the engine with two outputs, 256 hp and 276 hp. As with all other twin sequential turbo systems, Subaru's was simple in concept, wildly complicated in execution. Under the hood is a mess of vacuum lines, plumbing, and solenoids to make the whole thing work. And controlling all those are some computers from the 1990s. It's a lot of complexity and a lot of things that can go wrong for what turned out to be questionable benefits. It seems Subaru wanted to address the relatively meager low-end torque of its single-turbo flat-fours, most notably used in the Impreza WRX, for the larger, heavier Legacy. And where in Japan, car owners are taxed based on engine displacement, further boosting a 2.0-liter rather than just making a bigger engine was advantageous. But as a 2001 review of the Liberty (Australian-market Legacy) B4 from Australian magazine AutoSpeed notes , there's a noticeable torque dip when the second turbo starts spooling up. It recorded up to 4.4 psi of boost-pressure dip, between 4,000 and 4,500 rpm, which is huge. A lot of enthusiasts call this zone the 'Valley of Death.' And this was the best-developed version of that engine, the one that our friend from the forums considered the most reliable and the one that best delivered on the sequential-turbo promise. Photo by: Subaru These problems weren't unique to Subaru. Sequential turbocharging always leads to uneven power delivery, and often, unreliability. It's why when tuners get their hands on a 2JZ-GTE or a 13B-REW, they almost always delete the twin-turbo setup for a simpler, single turbo. Still, Subaru's system was popular. A 2003 Car and Driver article noted that, at the time, the Legacy B4—the last Legacy to get the twin-turbo boxer—was Japan's most popular sports sedan. But, that same article noted that a lack of low-end torque was a 'weakness' of the B4, and why when Subaru decided to bring it to the US for 2004, it went with a 2.5-liter single-turbo flat-four. The system was never designed to work with left-hand drive cars, so it remained mostly a Japan-only affair, with some sales in Australia and New Zealand later in its life. Subaru discontinued the twin-turbo flat-four with the arrival of the fourth-generation Legacy in 2004. At the same time, it switched to a single twin-scroll turbocharger with its EJ20 flat-four, which helped address the traditional concerns around turbocharged engines without needing all sorts of complicated vacuum and hydraulic systems to make it work. Photo by: Subaru I can't help but wonder why Subaru didn't try a more conventional parallel turbo setup, with one turbo for each side. Yes, at the time there was a sort of sequential-turbo fever, but that layout makes more sense for an inline engine, like the 2JZ, or a rotary, like the 13B. Porsche abandoned sequential turbocharging after the 959, switching to parallel turbos with the 993 Turbo, something it stuck with until bringing the single-turbo flat-six back with the new, hybrid Carrera GTS . No one has ever tried another twin-turbo gas four-cylinder of any sort since, and I highly doubt anyone will. It seems you only need so much airflow with four-cylinders, even if they are in a boxer arrangement. Even when Porsche made a turbo flat-four itself for the 718, it went single turbo. Today's WRX is a good example of how far turbocharger technology has come in addressing response—its 258 pound-foot torque peak is a plateau from 2,000 to 5,200 rpm. Still, Subaru's sequential twin-turbo setup was a more interesting answer, if not a better one. It's reflective of a totally different era, where Japanese automakers went crazy pushing all sorts of new technology with little to no regard to cost. What's better? The rational solution, or the fun one? The fun one, obviously! Unless you're the one trying to make it work. More Rabbit Hole Why Carbon-Ceramic Brakes Are Expensive. And Why They Might Be Worth It The Brilliance of Electric Turbochargers Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Can You Trust The Oil Life Monitor In Modern Cars?
As the auto industry gets more digital and high tech, we have to ask ourselves the question -- is all of this going to work as intended? Technology is always a mixed bag in that it can improve safety and convenience, but it can also create unforeseen complications. So when it comes to new tech in cars like oil life monitors, we have to wonder if it actually works. This is especially important since these days a lot of new cars don't have a dipstick to check oil level. However, a lot of consumers have already encountered problems. For instance, the oil level monitor could suggest adding a quart of oil, only for that to be too much. In a world where automakers are going digital, we wonder how accurate those new digital oil life monitors really are. Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto are one thing, but replacing reliable systems just to seem modern doesn't always help. Read more: These Are The Worst Transmission Recalls Of The Last 5 Years As the name says, this is a device or system that monitors the oil life expectancy of a vehicle as it degrades. Many oil life monitors use sensors that collect real-time data that is then put into an algorithm to compute an estimate of the oil life. This data covers several factors, such as your driving habits, operating conditions, and in some cases, vehicle mileage. All of these can affect how quickly your motor oil degrades. However, the oil life monitor is only providing an estimate based on the data it collects. When it comes to oil life and the quality of motor oil, we don't love the idea of taking a guess. Still, there are some benefits to oil life monitors. They can help prevent the needless throwing away of oil, which is good for the environment. This also means less oil changes and maintenance visits. If anything, oil life monitors are a safeguard for those of us who may be a little forgetful. So how accurate are those sensors, really? Well, they can certainly malfunction and degrade over time as well. This can lead to premature oil changes or driving with bad oil. Most can't detect oil levels, oil quality, or the condition of the oil. Instead, the algorithm is based on the data collected about driving habits and the vehicle's operating conditions, but driving conditions like harsh environments or weather are not accounted for. So, all-in-all, can we trust oil life monitors? Don't bet your car on it. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Motor 1
20-06-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
The Brilliance of Electric Turbochargers
What is a turbocharger's job? In essence, it's to increase thermal efficiency. An electric turbocharger does this and more, which is why I'm a big fan. Thermal efficiency is a measure of how much of the potential energy of a fuel is consumed to create power, versus how much of it is simply generating waste heat. In pure terms, an automotive internal-combustion engine is not very efficient. For example, Toyota made a big deal in the late 2010s when it achieved 40 percent thermal efficiency in its Dynamic Force four-cylinder engine. Meaning it was only wasting 60 percent of its potential energy. Welcome to The Rabbit Hole , a bi-weekly column where Senior Editor Chris Perkins explores his latest obsession with automotive technology. He speaks to the best in the business to understand how cars work and what the future of the automobile looks like. Incidentally, this is why EVs have an appeal beyond zero local emissions. Thermal efficiency doesn't apply to electric motors because they're not directly powered by a heat source. But in terms of electrical efficiency—the ratio of electrical energy a motor consumes to its useful output—an EV's motor is about 75 to 90 percent efficient, according to Renault , at least. So, in short, internal-combustion engines, especially on their own, aren't especially energy efficient. Electric motors are very energy efficient. Turbocharging can help narrow that gap. Mind you, it's still a big gap, but any little bit helps, right? This story was available to our newsletter subscribers before it hit the site. Want early access? Sign up below. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . Turbocharging 101: A turbocharger consists of a turbine in the exhaust system, a compressor in the intake, and a shaft connecting the two. The exhaust turbine spins up with the flow of exhaust gases, which in turn spins up the compressor, increasing the density of the air headed into the engine, boosting power. In terms of thermal efficiency, it takes energy that would otherwise be lost as heat and turns it into something useful. Photo by: Mercedes-Benz Turbocharging 201: An electric turbocharger adds a motor attached to the shaft between the turbine and compressor. This means you can spin up the turbocharger independent of exhaust-gas flow, which has all sorts of benefits. Most notable is the all-but-elimination of turbo lag, but also the lowering of boost threshold, and allowing for higher boost pressure. And simply knowing the shaft speed of a turbocharger—which admittedly can also be achieved with a simple speed sensor—allows the automaker to run the turbo more safely closer to its maximum speed. But an electric motor works backward too, generating electrical energy if you use it to brake the turbine. An engineer from Mercedes-AMG once told me that in some cases, an electric turbocharger can be energy neutral ; The energy the turbocharger's motor regenerates is enough to power the turbocharger itself. There are big thermal efficiency gains to be had using electric turbochargers. Mercedes-AMG said in 2017 its electric-turbocharged Formula 1 V-6 exceeded 50 percent thermal efficiency , which was one of the first times ever an automotive engine converted more of its fuel source into useful power than waste heat. Like all F1 engines, the AMG V-6 uses a Motor-Generator-Unit-Heat (MGU-H), which is simply another term for an electric turbocharger. AMG later became the first to offer electric turbochargers in a road car with the four-cylinder in the C43 and C63. Photo by: Mercedes-Benz Porsche then took things a step further with its hybrid system for the new 911 Carrera GTS . Its single BorgWarner turbocharger has a 14.7-horsepower electric motor on its shaft, and uniquely, no wastegate. Typically, a turbocharger uses a wastegate—a valve that opens to expel excess exhaust gas—to limit boost pressure. Porsche instead brakes the turbocharger's motor to control boost pressure, so it's not wasting any exhaust gas and generating additional electrical energy. That additional electrical energy can power either the turbocharger itself, or the 53.6-horsepower traction motor sandwiched between the engine and transmission. Photo by: Chris Perkins / Motor1 A Porsche engineer also tells Motor1 that using a large turbocharger and limiting its turbine speed with the motor reduces exhaust-gas temperature, and therefore, the temperature of the charge air going into the engine. That eliminates the need for fuel enrichment, which is often used to reduce combustion temperatures, but this practice now being banned with Euro 7 emissions regulations. Porsche's use of an e-turbo boosts the engine's thermal and fuel efficiency, and overall vehicle efficiency. Broadly speaking, going electric feels like a natural extension for turbocharging. If the point of turbocharging is to boost efficiency, why not go for a solution that furthers that aim? Well, electric turbochargers are expensive, complicated, and heavy. Ferrari is using electric turbochargers for its F80 hypercar, but its closest rival, McLaren, uses conventional turbos in the coming W1. McLaren engineers told Motor1 that they didn't want the extra weight electric turbos would bring, and that they'd rather use the car's electrical energy to power the traction motor. Adding weight and complexity is always a difficult decision for an automaker, one of the many compromises it must consider in the course of engineering a car. The complexity has to justify itself. McLaren might also have a point on the electrical energy side of things. In the past, I've written about interesting internal-combustion engine technologies, like Mazda's spark-controlled compression ignition and Nissan's variable compression . Both improve efficiency and performance, but not so much as augmenting internal combustion with a conventional hybrid system. Does electric turbocharging fall into the same category? Someone from one automaker might say yes, but then why would engineering powerhouses like Mercedes, Porsche, and Ferrari all embrace it? Photo by: Porsche Ironically, for a technology that was developed in Formula 1, the sport will soon abandon electric turbocharging. To attract more engine suppliers, F1 is changing its engine formula for next year to abandon the MGU-H, deeming it too expensive and not relevant to road cars… just as more road cars are embracing this technology. F1 is also upping the electric portion of its hybrid powertrain to achieve about a 50/50 split between engine and motor power. And hey, F1 is expanding its engine supplier base with Audi, Ford, and GM all joining the fray. F1 is a sport and a business, not simply a technological proving ground. In any case, turbocharging is, in spirit, about not leaving energy on the table. An internal-combustion engine is going to produce a ton of exhaust gas that is pure waste. Why not make something useful out of that? And why not generate additional electrical energy from it while you're at it? Engineering at its best maximizes the potential of what you have in front of you. This isn't to say that cars that don't use electric turbochargers are bad, or that there aren't legitimate reasons to skip out on this piece of tech. It's possibly something that only justifies itself in higher-end performance-car applications. There's an admirable engineering ideal with electric turbochargers that satisfies the nerd in me. Isn't maximizing potential something we should all strive for? Further Down the Rabbit Hole Why Carbon-Ceramic Brakes Are Expensive. And Why They Might Be Worth It Why BMW's B58 Is a True Successor to the Toyota 2JZ Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
MB Motors Opens New State-of-the-Art 10-Bay Garage in Rugeley
MB Motors is opening a state-of-the-art 10-bay workshop in Rugeley. Rugeley, England--(Newsfile Corp. - June 17, 2025) - MB Motors Rugeley is proud to announce the upcoming launch of its brand-new state-of-the-art 10-bay vehicle workshop, set to open within the next three months. MB MOTORS Opens New State-of-the-Art 10-Bay Garage In Rugeley To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: This major expansion marks a significant milestone for the business, which began as a one-man mobile mechanic service operating from the back of a car. From modest beginnings, MB Motors has grown into a highly respected independent garage known for its specialist expertise in prestige and performance vehicles. The new facility, based in Rugeley, will house the latest in automotive technology, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) calibration and genuine manufacturer-level diagnostic tools, Electric Vehicle Repairs and servicing enabling the team to deliver dealership-level service at competitive independent garage prices. "At MB Motors, we're proud of how far we've come," said Michael Ballard, Founder of MB Motors Rugeley. "From a mobile setup to this new 10-bay facility, it's been about building a trusted name and investing in our people." MB Motors attributes much of its growth to its commitment to staff development. The business has developed in-house apprenticeship programmes, MOT tester training, and a custom internal training platform. To support this expansion, MB Motors is currently recruiting across multiple positions at the new site. Roles are available for technicians, MOT testers, service advisors, and administrative staff. This new facility represents a major leap forward for the Rugeley-based company and signals its commitment to delivering high-quality, dealer-level automotive services to the local community and beyond. About MB Motors MB MOTORS Rugeley offers main-dealer-level vehicle servicing, repairs, and MOTs. Their garage, conveniently located in Rugeley, serves customers from Stafford, Cannock, Lichfield, and the wider Staffordshire area. With the latest diagnostics and a team of highly trained technicians, we work on all makes and models - including electric and hybrid vehicles. More information about MB Motors can be found on the business website. Alternatively, a representative for the company can be contacted directly using the information provided below. Contact Info:Name: Michael BallardEmail: mbmotors@ MB MotorsAddress: Unit 3, Bellamour Business Park, Wolseley Bridge, Stafford ST17 0XJPhone: 01889882488Website: To view the source version of this press release, please visit Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Motor 1
06-06-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
Why Carbon-Ceramic Brakes Are Expensive. And Why They Might Be Worth It
A couple of years ago, a Brembo engineer told me something that stuck: If you buy a car with carbon-ceramic brakes, you'll likely never need to replace the rotors. I'd heard the benefits of carbon-ceramic brakes talked up before, but this particularly bold claim seemed wild, an answer to the ultimate question: Are these fancy brakes worth their huge price tag? On the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, the carbon-ceramics are a $9,000 option; BMW charges $8,500; Porsche charges more than $9,000. Carbon-ceramic brakes are routinely among the priciest options for cars that already have a lot of big-ticket extras. Is there any world in which they're worth it? Welcome to The Rabbit Hole, a bi-weekly column where Senior Editor Chris Perkins explores his latest obsession with automotive technology. He speaks to the best in the business to understand how cars work and what the future of the automobile looks like. Photo by: Brembo Cast iron is a wonderful material for making brake discs. It's relatively cheap, easy to cast and machine into shape, and crucially, it has higher thermal conductivity than, say, steel. To perhaps state the obvious here, brakes convert a car's kinetic energy (forward motion) into heat via friction between the pad and rotor when the two come together. So a brake disc's thermal properties are of key importance. "[Cast-iron discs] have a better ability of absorbing the heat," explains Emanuele Bruletti, senior engineering manager for Brembo North America. "They can absorb it at a lower rate [than other common materials], and therefore, they can help in taking some of that away from the pads." It's the same reason cast iron makes for a great skillet, but if you cook with one, you know just how heavy it is. Weight is a car's enemy. So too is the increased demand on braking systems as cars evolve. This story was available to our newsletter subscribers before it hit the website. Want early access? Sign up below. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . "What has been driving the size increase in braking systems in the last few years is basically the performance envelope increasing," Bruletti explains. Cars are simply more powerful and heavier. Tires also play a role. Bruletti says that modern developments in tires have allowed for far greater deceleration rates, further increasing the demand on a braking system. That increased demand translates to more heat. Upping the size of your cast-iron rotor helps deal with all that heat better and improves the brake's ability to effectively slow a car. For obvious reasons, though, you can only make rotors so big, both for packaging and weight. Brake rotors are unsprung, which means their mass has a disproportionately high effect on ride and handling relative to a car's sprung masses. They're also rotating masses, which have a big effect on a vehicle's ability to accelerate, brake, and turn. "If you can shave weight off your car and more importantly, unsprung weight and evenly more importantly unsprung rotating weight, which is what a rotor is, [there are] huge gains to be had in performance," says James Walker Jr., a racer, engineer, and author on a book about braking systems. Chasing lightness, Dunlop developed the first carbon-fiber reinforced carbon brakes for the Concorde in the 1960s, and by the 1980s, these became common in Formula 1. However, these carbon-carbon brakes, still in use at the top levels of motorsport, are entirely unsuitable for road use, as they don't work well at cold temperatures. They're also extremely expensive and time-consuming to make, even now. A carbon-reinforced silicon-carbide matrix brings some of the weight-saving benefits of carbon-carbon brakes, but in a package that actually works at cold temperatures. And while still expensive and time-consuming to make, a carbon-ceramic brake disc is a lot easier and cheaper to manufacture than a carbon-carbon disc. We're talking a production time of around a couple days vs four months here. (That said, Brembo can make a cast-iron disc in about two hours.) Photo by: Porsche Photo by: Ferrari German company SGL Carbon introduced carbon-ceramic brakes in a road car, with the 2001 Porsche 911 GT2. Brembo's first carbon-ceramic brakes arrived a year later, with the Ferrari Enzo. In 2009, SGL and Brembo formed a joint venture for the development and manufacture of carbon-ceramic brakes, and today, it's one of, if not the largest, suppliers of brakes of this type. Bruletti says the carbon-ceramic matrix it uses has about a third the density of its cast iron. In terms of actual weight savings, you see all sorts of numbers thrown out. A good example is the brake discs in the previous-generation M3 and M4. In a technical document, BMW quotes a 30.6-pound weight for the car's standard front rotors and 17.1 pounds for the carbon-ceramics. So nearly half. The proportional weight savings for the carbon-ceramic rear rotors on the old M3 and M4 are similar, and that's despite the fact that BMW's carbon discs were slightly larger than their cast-iron counterparts. So great! But, we also need to talk about what carbon-ceramic brakes don't do. As Walker explains, a brake system is, essentially, a series of hydraulic levers that turn the relatively light force the driver applies to the brake pedal into a huge force at the road that slows the car down. In a road car, a 20 to 30 pound pedal input can translate to 1G of deceleration. This is called gain. Here, carbon-ceramic brakes don't have an advantage. "There's nothing that's done with a carbon-ceramic system compared to a cast-iron system that increases the mechanical output of the brake system," Walker explains. "So there's no real advantage to them in that space. The only reason people say, 'Oh, they feel better, they stop better,' is not because it's carbon ceramic, it's because [the automaker has] tuned that carbon-ceramic system to have a higher gain." Taking things a step further, Walker also points out that the braking system is only as good as the tire you have attached to it. Imagine you could have two identical cars, on the same model tires, the only difference being that one has cast-iron brakes, the other has a carbon-ceramic brake package. The brakes don't change the level of grip the tire is capable of. On the flipside, and to Bruletti's earlier point, the tire has a profound effect on the energy that goes into the braking system. Photo by: Ferrari As we've established, a carbon-ceramic disc is materially very different from a cast-iron disc. Carbon-ceramic has a much lower level of thermal conductivity than iron, but also far less mass and heat capacity. Which is a good and bad thing. Good because the brake disc can withstand the higher temperatures that today's faster/heavier/grippier vehicles generate in extreme braking events, courtesy of that ceramic chemistry. Brembo says carbon-ceramic discs can comfortably operate between 1,000 and 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit and can even withstand temperatures beyond 1,800 degrees. That's why carbon-ceramic brakes are frequently praised for their resistance to fade on track. But since the lighter and less-dense carbon-ceramic rotors gain and lose temperature quickly, that leads to huge thermal stresses on the rest of the braking components as they heat and cool in rapid succession. A cast-iron rotor better contains its heat, which keeps everything else cool. "You need to find a way of dissipating that heat away from the pads in some other way, and this is where it becomes very important to provide the necessary cooling at the brake system," Bruletti says. Photo by: Porsche Photo by: Porsche Beyond carefully designed cooling from both external components and internal rotor ducting, the fact that carbon-ceramic rotors aren't made from a homogenous material also has implications . The length, diameter, and orientation of the individual carbon fibers all have an effect on the material's thermal capacity. Adding additional layers and coatings also improves thermal capacity, which is why Brembo and SGL offer CCB brakes with additional ceramic friction layers on both sides, and CCW brakes, which use five carbon-ceramic layers. These options allow automakers to size down components, further saving weight, but their manufacturing processes are more time-consuming and thus, expensive. That's helpful because generally, carbon-ceramic rotors are larger than their cast-iron equivalents, in cars where both are optional. This is a direct result of the heat a carbon-ceramic rotor reflects into the pad during large braking events. 'In order to guarantee a stability of the friction material, you need to go larger with the pad,' Bruletti explains. And when you make the pad larger, you make the caliper larger, and the rotor larger. It's all cyclical. Yet, there's also a virtuous cycle here. Reducing unsprung, rotational mass means there's less weight to control. In theory, an automaker can use the weight reduction from carbon-ceramic brakes to employ smaller tires, lower spring and damper rates, smaller anti-roll bars, and so on. Photo by: McLaren All because of the outsize effect that a brake rotor's weight has on the rest of the car. That's a big part of why Ferrari and McLaren only use carbon-ceramic brakes, beyond the simple need for a brake system that can handle the huge stresses these fast cars generate. And now, we get to the original claim, the thing that started me down this path. Does a carbon-ceramic rotor last the life of the car? Yes. In some cases. 'The wear of the components really depends on usage, how you use them,' Bruletti says. 'If we assume that the usage, the cycles will be the same, yes, it is fair to say that in normal driving and non-track usage, just everyday driving, a carbon ceramic rotor will last in my opinion almost the entire life of your vehicle.' It's not just the guy from Brembo saying that too. Walker agrees that in normal street use, a carbon-ceramic rotor will last a very long time. Obviously you'll need to replace pads, but the rotors could have incredible longevity. But add track use into the mix, and the calculus becomes very different. With lots of heavy braking events, the carbon fibers in a carbon-ceramic rotor will eventually burn out. They'll lose thermal capacity. At road speeds, this won't happen much, if at all, but depending on what sort of car you drive on track, what sort of tracks you go to, and how you drive it, the carbon fibers can burn out very quickly. Photo by: BMW Let's say you're running your new, 5,300-pound BMW M5 at Road America, where you'll regularly blow past 150 mph on the track's long straights. Let's also say you're one of the last of the late brakers, pushing your brake zones as deep into the corner as you dare, hitting the pedal as hard as you can. If you've got carbon brakes on, you shouldn't expect those rotors to last very long at all. But say you've got a Porsche 911 GT3, which weighs in around 3,330 pounds, and you're at Lime Rock Park, which has only one heavy braking zone. And let's also say that you're a bit more measured. Rather than braking hard and late, you brake a little lighter, a little earlier. In that case, you can reasonably expect a more life out of your carbon-ceramic rotors. That difference, though, is why Porsche still offers cast-iron rotors on its GT cars, even the mighty GT3 RS. It knows that some customers will use up their brakes tracking their cars often, and in that instance, it makes sense to go for cast-iron discs, which are much cheaper to replace. Some other things to consider: With usage, a carbon-ceramic rotor doesn't lose thickness like a cast-iron rotor, but when those carbon fibers burn out, they do decrease in weight. This means a carbon-ceramic rotor won't develop cracks or warp like a cast-iron rotor would on track, so there's another point in favor. It's also why the hats on many carbon-ceramic rotors list a minimum weight. Once the rotor goes below that weight, it's time for a replacement. So, there isn't a simple answer to whether carbon-ceramic brakes are 'worth it.' But given what we all now know, their high upfront cost can be offset by rotor longevity, and the myriad other benefits the technology brings. It becomes a question of you, the customer. How are you going to use your car, and what do you value at the end of the day? More Deep Dives Brake Dust Is a Problem. Brembo Has a Solution Why BMW's B58 Is a True Successor to the Toyota 2JZ Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
