Greetings gents,

Had some new pads put on a while back (with full brake job). Now, this dust is like it is welded onto the wheels. I basically have to scrub them with steel wool to get it off. I'm about to clean them really well and hit them with wheel wax and see if that helps. Previous pads weren't like this. Any ideas?

LR

You have to get dustless pads to avoid the dust issue (ex. Akebono)

Sounds to me like whomever installed your pads didn't get the pistons back far enough in the calipers. I had a friend who put brand new tires, wheels and big brakes on his Corvette, ran the crap out of the car, and had the same problem. I was with him (he would take off like a banshee and then slam on the brakes saying, "dig these new brakes man, they are sweet!" when we stopped after some serious fading to inspect the brakes. The front rotors were glowing red and the brake's friction material had spit off tiny bits and melted themselves into the aluminum wheels. The only fix was to grind/sand out the debris, media blast the aluminum, and send them out for re-chrome. All because the brake pads weren't installed properly.

Hint: if you have to force the calipers on with the new pads, the pistons aren't back far enough. They should slide on with little or no resistance. This ensures that the piston will have room to properly seat the pads onto the rotor. There is a procedure in most automobile manuals for doing this and then seating the brakes.