Might have overheated the brakes - advice

[MrOrange]

Went for a spirited drive at the weekend and after a while the brakes started making a pretty noisy "scraping" noise.

Stopped and checked, 5mm+ still on the pads yet the discs looked a little "patchy" and slightly blued in areas. The car still stopped ok, albeit with a longer pedal, but I'm wondering if it's time for a better compound or maybe wind-down the pace; the latter would be a little disappointing.

The sound went away after another 5 miles of gentle driving. Suggestions and ideas

(car is a Vantage N400)

[quench]

5 mm? That's not a whole lot of pad!

Blue tinge uniformly over discs = OK (they should look like this after proper heat cycling and bedding in).

Patchy deposits = bad, could be uneven pad deposition, often incorrectly called warped discs. Typically these are accompanied by 'judder' or vibration when braking. Do you have this?

The front brakes on these cars are not adequately cooled, but unless you thrash the car mercilessly on mountain roads, I can't imagine this being an issue anywhere but the track.

[MrOrange]

Patchy deposits. Tick.
Vibration. No.
Awful screechy metallic sound. Tick.
Long pedal. Tick.
V. hot brakes (smell). Tick.

I brake quite hard and it was hilly.

[Silent1]

i suspect the inside pads are worn down more than the outside ones and are pretty much done.

[quench]

Metallic screeching - doesn't sound good! Time for new pads. I hope the discs aren't ruined. Do they look scored at all? I feel your pain - I wrecked my first set of discs and pads the first time I took my old V8V to the track, and it didn't take long.

[BingoBob]

What Silent1 said. I have seen this on other cars where the outer pads look OK and the inner ones are completely toast. Possibly because of less cooling getting to the inner ones?

The disks can be skimmed by a pro to get the deposits off if there is enough meat left on them. Then perhaps put some pads on that can take the abuse.

[mikey k]

Sounds like a new set of pads and new fluid

[Good Soil (Pete)]

Before you go down the path of getting everything replaced you should get things apart and have a good look. Could be something as simple a small stone wedged somewhere it shouldn't have been.....

[MrOrange]

UPDATE: Pads are okay, have over half the life left. Was recommended by an AM authority to switch to RS29 pads and Castrol SRF fluid so I'll be trying that over summer.