Five stars for the test victor: Brake pads from TRW

Environmentally friendly brake pads fromTRW brand name TRW ended up in firstplace in a topical quality comparison by the French automobile magazine AutoPlus. In January 2002, the magazine Öko-Test had already graded TRW with "very good" for the environmental friendliness  ten different pads on a Renault Scénic dCI. The focus was the braking distances when braking full and a durability test with 30 brake operations to examine the energy applied to the pedal and the behaviour of the brake pads at high temperatures. AutoPlus is the French counterpart of the German AUTO BILD and counts as one of the biggest automobile magazines in France.  AutoPlus examined braking distances for full- braking from three different speeds, at 50, 90 and 130 km/h. In this test the pads from the ten different manufacturers were just about even. How ever, the differences became very clear in the endurance test: A sequence of 30 powerful brake operations at short intervals demanded a muscular strength of only 10.5 (for the first brake operation) and 13 kilograms (after 30 brake operations) from the driver of the Renault Scénic equipped with TRW pads. With other pads the driver had to exert an up to 25 kilograms higher power. The French testers also examined after how many brake operations fading occurs. Some pads give up after the fifth, some after the 14th brake operation. The heavy metal free TRW brake pads showed no sign of fading even with the 30th brake operation. In the total result from the test, the pads from TRW received all five possible  revealed that performance capacity and environmental compatibility can be found under one roof - or: on one brake pad. In 2000, TRW Automotive already converted the TRW brake pads to a new generation of heavy metal free pads. Production has dispensed with copper, brass, antimony or lead in favour of mineral and ceramic components.