Brake Tech: Bedding Brakes

Your mechanically inclined buddies will always recommend bedding in brake pads and rotors when you replace them. You’ve may have also seen dealerships and independent shops avoiding it. So, what is brake bedding, and how is it important? In this brake-tech brief, I’ll show you the pluses and minuses of brake bedding, but really, it all depends on usage factors.

Brake bedding is the process in which you transfer some of the brake pad material to your rotors to ensure even rotor engagement from your pads. You know when you add a new set of pads to your calipers and you get some brake “judder”? That’s usually a signal that the pads have not been bedded in properly. If you don’t know what that is, but you’ve had a brake rotor that has “warped”, then you’ve felt something like brake judder. Brake bedding will also help reduce brake glazing on the pads and rotors. Brake glazing increases your stopping distance, so say “no” to the glaze.

In cases where you’re not maximizing your stopping distances — track driving, autocrossing, or driving “spirited-ly” in your SRT Grand Cherokee — bedding isn’t extremely crucial. Over time with OEM pads and a set of new or machined rotors, the pads will bed themselves in and work fine. Typically, you bed-in your brakes in the conditions you expect to use them. If you’re a track-day or high-speed driver, you want to be sure you bed-in your brakes as the pad manufacturer recommends.

If you’re just driving your JK from point a-to-b on your pads, a few light stops will bed-in the brakes and you’ll usually feel judder-free operation afterward. The most important thing when replacing your pads is to make sure your rotors have been machined to remove the old layer of brake pad material that is on the rotor, or you could just get yourself a new set of rotors.

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Glowing Brake Image [Hot Rod Magazine]