LCP

...I'd been hearing a grinding when coming to a stop for the last 1000 miles or so, but being busy with non-car things, I took a quick glance, noticed a very mild groove in my right front rotor and figured I'd just put it on my list to getting around to figuring what was needed and taking care of it. Well, that went on for over a month before I realized the grinding was getting worse and finally went down there and took the wheel off for a good look-see. Anyway, the outer pad was almost completely gone and had worn a circular groove about a 1/4" across that went down through about 3/4ths of the life (depth) of the rotor. The normal pad wear probably only went through about 1/4th of the life of the rotor. I took that pad out and threw in an old used Hawk Blue track pad to limp around on until I get new pads (ordered a replacement set of Hawk HPS from tirerack today). So up front I have 3 nearly worn out Hawk HPS pads and 1 Hawk Blue. Soon I can replace all of those with new HPS, but I'm thinking of leaving the 1 abrasive Hawk Blue in for a week or two so it can wear down the rotor some so the groove isn't so deep. What say you? I don't really want to order a new rotor just to get rid of this groove. Think the Hawk Blue seeing cold street use will wear down the rotor to the groove depth? I'll have to wash that wheel at least once or twice a week to get the corrosive dust off, but I can do that for a little while.

ryoung

I'd just install the new street pads as-is. You'll lose negligible braking performance, and the pads will eventually conform perfectly to the rotor. You'll avoid both throwing away half of your rotor life and the extra brake dust.

LCP

The Hawk Blue wore down half the difference in a week. New HPS on for all 4 front pads now.