With many commercial vehicles weighing in excess of 40 tons, brakes are understandably the primary safety concern for drivers and owners, as well as other road users. Yet, short braking distances are only possible by using quality friction materials, manufactured to the correct specifications.
In order to ensure its Borg & Beck CV brake pads deliver stopping power, First Line uses its in-house product team to ensure that the friction material used for the brake pads meets or exceeds OE specifications. The semi-metallic or low-metallic organic formulations (dependent on application) it has developed, provide high performance braking capability whilst minimising wear. Where enhanced performance is required, the brand offers eight HD pads made from a heavy-duty formulation.
The brake pads always use the same number of retention pots as the OE parts, which is in stark contrast to some aftermarket products that simply use an arbitrary number (usually four). Combined with a meshed backplate where necessary, the structure ensures that delamination does not occur, which could lead to reduced brake performance or even total failure.
In addition, all Borg & Beck brake pads feature slurry stripes to aid the bedding in process. This is a thin layer of mild abrasive, which cleans the friction surfaces and ensures maximum contact area between pad and disc.
The brake disc range now consists of more than 100 ECE R90 homologated discs. This classification is only obtained by the products undergoing independent testing of both hot and cold braking performance characteristics compared to the OE product.
Again, Borg & Beck brake discs are manufactured to OE specification using GG20 grey cast iron, which operates in temperatures up to 700 ̊C and part of the R90 process also includes a full factory audit and approval. As might be expected, the brand also offers a comprehensive range of brake drums, which are manufactured to OE specification and dimensions, but crucially, also in weight. Cheaper options in the market often have corners cut in their manufacturing process, which means they are lighter and not as strong. It is therefore important that CV drums are a comparable weight to that of the OE version.
The Borg & Beck CV braking programme now reaches to over 320 references across four product types and consists of 134 brake discs and 128 drums, as well as 35 brake pads and 25 wear sensors. The range is also backed up with the company’s 24- month unlimited mileage warranty.
