Camaro Brake Weights Nothing New, BMW Does It Too

Umm, there's a big difference between designing a caliper with added mass (BMW) and slapping on 8 cents worth of lead tire weights with double sided tape. And people wonder why GM has the reputation it does?

Why it is a big difference? Both are bandaid fixes for a less then perfect engineering job.

At least the GM fix is adjustable later without paying big bucks for a special caliper.

These are not comparable examples.

Lead sticky weights in production are not cool. Someone goofed.

In early prototype stages an engineer might try something like this to test a theory ahead of requesting a production-ready design change. Maybe the design change was rejected as too expensive and this was the fall-back.

But's it's so obvious and visible. Even if they'll never fall off, it looks crude.

The BMW shot shows a production fix that's much more sanitary. And it's much more understandable because the 135i has Brembo calipers that might show up in numerous applications. The masses bolted on here look like intentional noise-tuning design features--each application gets a different thickness to tune the caliper to a particular car's resonant frequency.

Sure, it's not ideal, but think of it as tailoring a suit without starting from scratch.

You'll find mass dampers all over the underside of any car. The trick is integrating them elegantly and making it look factory.

From that POV, these two are hardly the same.

BMW's use lug bolts as well? Is this German thing?

In all seriousness, does it really matter what the caliper looks like? While you are driving the car you won't see it. You won't see it other than when you are cleaning the wheels. When you look at a car, do you intentionally examine the brake calipers?

More importantly will be the rotor life. GM historically uses bottom of the barrel materials for their rotors. My '99 Camaro needed all new rotors at 8K miles. My '06 Impala's rotors were shot at 12K. For comparison, my '03 Dodge Durango still had the original rotors at 45,000 miles when it was traded for the Impala. All three vehicles were driven the same roads/commute.

Uhh, they said the sticky weights are only being used on the early builds, so it looks like they'll be doing a much more permanent solution (a la BMW) once production ramps up.

Well, if I were an early build customer I'd be asking whether I'd get a free retrofit once they become available. If "yes", then I'd say the hackles needn't be raised as high.

By my understanding the early build cars will get a retrofit. Apparently this was a goof by Brembo, as early examples delivered for assembly were not up to spec. This isn't the only example of suppliers screwing up early delivery parts for the Camaro. The first production car built had unacceptable panel misalignment in the interior. After it rolled off the line it was fixed with corrected trim pieces before being delivered to the customer. Unfortunately it sounds like Brembo didn't fix their parts quick enough.

It seems everyone is jumping on GM for brembo's mistake. No one would dare blame Brembo , so its gotta be GM's fault right. Every manufacturer has problems with new production models. Thats why you never buy the first years run.