Well I feel that Akebono was a nice balance in feel and no dust (it drove me nut).
Plus, in real world driving, they stop on a dime. They scrub off speed really well - I've had a couple of saves thanks to these.
Akebono ceramic pads (ACT888) - not much brake dust, good cold bite, good wet bite. EBC rotors. Rockauto will have them - great website, btw. I got EBC simply because the rotor hats are painted black. My g35 had the rotor hats with a red ring of rust on them, looked awful. In hindsight, really any rotors will be fine. Centric premiums are ok, probably around 50 bucks each - I think they have the black painted hats as well. Akenbono pads were maybe 100 for the 4. I think I got those on Amazon. They have ones that are OEM form factor. Drilled/slotted are for racing applications, not so much for dd. Not necessary to spend the money on those. And by racing, I mean you are stomping on your brakes 20 times in 5 minutes, for 10 laps. You'll end up replacing the pads and rotors pretty quickly due to the sheer heat involved in constant hard braking. So the longevity involved is... 1 track day, or two track days. Brake pads and rotors are fundamentally a wear item. The pads/rotors will wear over time regardless of DBA's "kangeroo paw" ventilation system - DBA 4/5000's are what, 200 bucks a pop. It really doesn't matter. You should get 25,000 miles out of pretty much any set of brake pads and rotors almost regardless of what brand they are. No reason to buy 800 dollar set vs 2-300 dollar set unless you are literally a racetrack driver. I'm betting my EBC rotors and Akebono pad combo will last about 50,000 miles, seeing as how my sedan is a dd that I pack my kids into.
The brakes are worth every cent. They're an order of magnitude more powerful and confidence inspiring than my MK6 GTI.
The brakes themselves have radically better cooling ability in the rear, and much improved in the front. The brakes have more effective leverage form the bigger diameter, so you have to push less firmly on the pedal to get the same stopping power as a regular GTI. The difference in brake feel is quite substantial.
My Father works for Akebono. We run their pads on a lot of cars (Mainly my GTI and a buddy's FoST) and I prefer the Euro sport ceramics to hawk HPS pads or any other pads I've tried. The Euro Ceramics are absolutely great. They have greatly decreased dusting over stock, less noise when both cold/hot, and stopping power is improved over stock.
I have Akebono pads on my '13 allroad ------ probably a 95% reduction in brake dust compare to the OEM pads. The Akebono's have been great.
i have akebono pro act ceramic pads on my golf with 20thAE brakes. they dont seem to be wearing down in the past 5 years, and the rotors have no grooving or wear on them. nice change from doing an annual 4-wheel brake job :thumbup:
Yep... had that happen with my GLI. Stg 1 A6 GLI and the brakes really couldn't keep up w/the car. Upgraded them to A6 Golf R fronts and no problem now stopping.
Ugh, somehow these pads are even dustier than the stock pads on my STI. I didn't know that was possible.
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