I’ll be changing my brake pads soon, and have a question about Carlson Quiet Glide brake clips. These sound like a good idea: the surface where the ends of the brake pads sit and slide has a layer of PTFE (Teflon) while the other side that sits on the bracket is coated with vulcanized rubber to reduce vibration and noise. This supposedly eliminates the need to grease these areas up - just snap them in place and go.
Has anyone tried these? How did they work? I’m especially interested in knowing how they have held up over the long term - months, years, if the Teflon & rubber coatings have lasted, brakes still work OK, etc.
Thanks.
I wi’’ be reading the replies. I have never heard of them but it sounds like they might be useful in our high salt area. I assume that between the rubber and Teflon they are stainless.
Thats a gimmick ! The rubber coating may prevent the pads from sliding freely due to its tickness. I usually clean the metal before I insert new clips.Sandpaper and a small square file to get rid of the rust is all I need. I put a little brake grease between the clips and metal for good measure.
If you buy high quality pads, new clips are usually included in the box.
I also live in an area that salts roads during the winter, which is why these sounded interesting to me. I figured that the Teflon might help to release any buildup of crud from the surface of the clips and allow the pads to move freely. I believe they are stainless steel. I first heard about them on a YouTube video posted by Scotty Kilmer. He devoted the entire video to these clips. Maybe he was paid to hype them, but the concept still interested me. Thanks.
I’ve already bought the pads, and they did come with new stainless clips. Even with the rubber coating on the Quiet Glides, I think I would still put some grease between the clips and metal as you recommended just to keep the metal from rusting any more. Thanks for the tips.
Scotty is probably sponsored by them and a few others to get enough cash to produce his videos. The concept is fine,but in real life,the rubber and Teflon coating on these clips will soon wear off and covered by crud and rust like any other clips.Professional techs replace them everytime new pads goes in.
I decided to go ahead and try the Quiet Glide clips when I replaced my pads. The clips seemed slightly more flexible than the Subaru OEM clips. Maybe the base stainless steel metal was made a bit thinner to account for the extra layers of PTFE & rubber. Not sure, but the clips fit just fine. Both front and rear kits also came with new rubber protective boots for all of the caliper guide pins and new rubber sleeves for the bottom guide pins.
I didn’t apply any grease to the clips themselves, preferring to keep them dry, but I did apply a thin layer of silicone grease (Raybestos DBL-2T) to the surfaces of the bracket where the clips sit to prevent any rust or corrosion from building up under them. I used silicone grease to avoid damaging the rubber coating on the bottom of the clips.
I noticed that when I inserted the brake pads and slid them back and forth to test for free movement, the pads had scraped a little bit of the Teflon off. Seems like the PTFE application isn’t very durable, but I’m not sure how much of a problem that would be under real world use where the pads would move very little over a long period of time.
After several weeks of driving, I haven’t noticed any problems with them. I’ll probably check them again after next winter to see how they’re holding up and will try to update this thread again.
