Toasted Akebono Piston Dust Boots

spearfish25

Since our track day season has come to a close up here, I swapped out my track pads for the street pads once again. My last track day was Road America which surely was the most brake-intensive track I've driven this summer. Well, I'll be damned if my front Akebono piston dust boots aren't all but disintegrated. The brakes were flawless all season using Carbotech pads and Motul fluid, but apparently the boots weren't up to the temps that the rest of the system could take.

How important are these dust boots? What kind of issues am I looking at down the road if I just ignore the fact they're in dust boot heaven? I vaguely recall a thread about this long ago, but the ubber-advanced Google forum search left me hanging.

No pics...just imagine a caliper piston with a vaporized rubber boot fragment around it.

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2013 Cadillac V-Wagon, RIP Z