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socal imports dangerous mistake

Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:25 pm
by ryans88gt
Bought the disk brake conversion with drop spindles. All the parts seemed really nice. Installed everything.

The car pulled violently towards oncoming traffic under braking. Checked and rechecked. Bled brakes, reset alignment, checked tire pressures etc... but my car continued to pull violently into oncoming traffic.

So I took the calipers off to check that I didn't have a bound up piston or malfunctioning caliper. They came preloaded with pads and I just bolted them on.

Well I took the pads off and immediately realized the problem. One caliper had a very aggressive brake pad and the other caliper had a OEM type brake pad. Easily distinquishable difference in the pad material, and the backing plates were different, one was zinc plated and painted black and the other was painted black over mild steel. One set had glued on shims and the other set had loose shims. So definitely different brake pads.

Very aggravated that I would get to different sets of brake pads in a complete preloaded caliper kit that resulted in very dangerous braking behavior. I could have been seriously hurt or killed if I wasn't an experienced driver and this seems like a very careless mistake.

Thought I would share in case some one else out there is having a similar issue. Check your pads. or buy new pads

End rant.

Re: socal imports dangerous mistake

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 9:26 am
by ryans88gt
Left a message with socal three days ago. No response from them.

Very stand up -*sarcasm*

Re: socal imports dangerous mistake

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 12:14 pm
by Lingwendil
Call them. They usually handle things quickly.


Crazy though OP.

Now, if only you had disassembled them to paint them Red maybe you would have noticed, lol.

Re: socal imports dangerous mistake

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:49 pm
by Jadewombat
Scary...unfortunately not surprising though.

Re: socal imports dangerous mistake

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 2:22 pm
by ryans88gt
Just wanted to let everyone know that I did call them and got a very apologetic call back (after a few days)

They told me that they have a very low rate of return on calipers and brake parts and yadda yadda and unfortunately sometimes mistakes happen.

They next day shipped me some new brake pads.

So... despite the issue, very good customer service.