Are Carbon Ceramic Brakes Worth the Cost?

While They Are Technically More Capable, Carbon Ceramic Brakes Are Too Expensive to Justify Purchasing Instead of Traditional Steel Units.

Backlash may happen, but I feel that I finally have to speak up about carbon ceramic brakes. From a performance standpoint, carbon ceramic units do have the ability to outperform their steel counterparts. Carbon ceramic brakes sure don’t out-perform when it comes to price, though.

Demographics show that almost all Corvettes are driven exclusively on the street. Carbon Ceramic brakes have no advantage there. In that environment, they are simply a show piece.

You may ask: “What if I take my Corvette to track days on a regular basis?” Heavy use of brakes in a track day environment means you’ll blast through them even quicker. A set of steel rotors with performance pads will give you nearly the same performance, and won’t make you pull out a pay-day advance loan when you go to buy them. I don’t know about you, but $200 for a rotor seems a lot more appealing than $1,500.

Steel rotors with a floating rotor hat design actually do a very efficient job of dissipating heat when pushed hard. Combined with a performance brake fluid, you’re very unlikely to get fade. Need further proof? The rotors you see above were used on the Le Mans-winning Ford GT race car. Case closed.

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