Many have melted the brakes off the ceramic at the track. On the Porsche, it was common for them to swap back over back in the days
Wasn’t the point of ceramics being used because of its heat retention/dissipation qualities over traditional steel brakes? You know, brake fade?
I don’t think swapping over to steel brakes is going to fix that drivers issue.
Part of their benefit is the ability to operate at much higher temperatures. Interestingly, one of the issues that pops up as a result of this is boiling brake fluid during use. Years ago, I was working with some of the guys at Aprilia on developing a brake cooling system for some of their race bikes that provided cooling directly to the calipers for the sole purpose of managing brake fluid temperature. Ended up pitching it to Brembo, but ended up not going anywhere.
I understand now. It’s not the carbon brakes themselves that are melting, the brake fluid is what’s burning from increased temperatures. Interesting.
Well, I don’t know that that’s specifically the issue the Porsches were having, but that definitely is an issue that can occur with ceramic brakes. I’d expect to see heat related issues with the pads or the fluids rather than the rotors.
Once you’ve boiled the fluid, the system needs lots of help.
So like a radiator for brake fluid?
the system I designed was a venturi based brake duct that sucked the hot air directly out of the brake caliper/pad interface. Basically it mounted along side the caliper, compressed the air down through the duct and then expanded back out, with a duct going to the back of the caliper.
There are some designs that go in between the pad and the caliper pistons that go to radiator that mounts next to the caliper.
Is age itself a component in the life expectancy of these brakes, or is it just wear and tear from driving?
From the discussion it sounds like I could buy a 2-3 year old vehicle with 20,000 miles on it and put on 3,000 miles a year, and basically never wear these things out before I got sick of the car.
Note: 3,000 miles for me is basically home <-> grocery store, home <-> 200 miles of freeway driving back and forth to a work function, a couple of annual weekend joyrides in the mountains, etc.
Brake fluid you can swap, the issue is the carbon stuff. I am in the process of swapping the pads and fluid on my model 3 to go to the track
The article didn’t mention swapping with cheap Chinese parts from eBay 
German car with Chinese parts. I’m sure you’ll find those for sale on Craigslist 
Depends on how you drive it, city mileage will get you more wear and tear versus highway mileage, a hard or late “braker” will wear them out faster, if it’s been to the track they will wear out faster, etc etc.
You would have to judge what type of driving style the previous owner/s have, that’s why it’s a rough approximation of 100k.
But to answer the question yes age matters in most wear and tear parts, the ccb would fall under that but it would probably be something like 10 years+.
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So then why get a car with CCB?
I was trying not to.