screws stripped

[umcamara]

Whoops... Looks like the 3 phillips-head screws I was talking about are actually four 12-14 mm head bolts securing the dust shields to the spindles. (Seems like overkill)

Sorry for the confusion....

[chrome730]

so its possible to remove the dust sheild?

[Inodoro Pereyra]

so its possible to remove the dust sheild?

Yes it is. You just have to remove the spindle first, and then remove the 4 bolts Umcamara was talking about.

By the way, I agree, those bolts are WAAAYYY too much for the dust shields.
I guess Mazda engineers wanted to make sure they didn't fall off...

[umcamara]

Like Inodoro says, it is possible to remove the shields, but not recommended.

Regular break pads that contain metal produce a brake dust that is black (ugly) and corrosive. If you were to remove the dust shields for heat and aesthetic reasons I would suggest using ceramic brake pads.

Ceramic brake pads create brake dust as well, but it's not black, and non-corrosive.

[chrome730]

found that out cause now my stock rims are almost completely black need to take better car of my car.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

found that out cause now my stock rims are almost completely black need to take better car of my car.

Yep. But switching to ceramics means not only taking better care of your car, but also taking better care of yourself, and, believe it or not, your wallet.
Ceramics normally cost 2 to 3 times more than the cheap semi-metallic pads, but they have several advantages over them. For starters, as Umcamara said, there's a substantial difference in the quantity and quality of dust produced by the pads. All pads produce dust (it's the byproduct of the pad wearing down), but ceramics' dust is far less than semi-metallics. That's because ceramics wear down much slower than semi-metallics (which makes them last much longer, hence the "better care of your wallet" part).
Also, since ceramics don't have metal specs, they wear down the rotors much slower, and more evenly than semi-metallics.
But the best part (the safety advantage) is that ceramics will stop your car faster than semi-metallics for a given braking effort, so in case of an emergency you'll be able to stop in a shorter distance (providing you don't lock the wheels, of course).

So, yes, as you probably already guessed, I'd strongly suggest you make the switch. Brakes are definitely not something you want to go cheap on.

[chrome730]

oh i know dude ive lost two cars to brake issues im currently on my 6th car which is my first mx/ mazda ever and ive fallen in love with it. im tryin to get things fixed on it but parts are very hard to find.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Advance Auto Parts has them.
For the front, the pads are part # CMX 473, brand is "Friction Master"
For the rear, if you have discs, the pads are part # CMX 366, same brand.
Or of you have rear drums, get Wagner, part # PAB 659.

I'm not sure the wagners are ceramics, but at least they're good quality.

And, yeah, everybody falls in love with the mx3. After all, we're only human...

[chrome730]

thank you

[wytbishop]

http://www.rockauto.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has a lot of very good prices and they carry most of the common parts we need most often. The thing to be careful of is trying to select parts that ship from the same warehouse when you're buying multiple parts. Often multiple brands are listed for each part but by just picking the cheapest part you may wind up selecting parts that ship from different locations and the overall cost will be much higher than it would have been if you had selected a more expensive part that comes from the same location as your other purchases.

I've saved a lot of money at rockauto.

[chrome730]

how can i tell where its being shipped from?

[wytbishop]

After you have put a part into your shopping cart it will have a little truck icon that shows the location it ships from. When you select another part you will see that ones that ship from the same location as parts you've already selected will have a little truck icon next to them. If you put items in your shopping cart that ship from different locations the truck icons will have different letters corresponding to the locations.

[chrome730]

awesome thank you