Brake pads ATE or Ferodo

Ferodo DS2500 are a great compromise pad. They’re a bit more on the race side of things but I never had issues with them being sketchy. Just get a bit of heat into them early to make sure they’re there.

I'm going to tell you ferodo DS 1.11. Street driven on them a ton very easy on rotors. Endurance pad, much better than other things I see mentioned a lot like it blows my mind when people think RSL29s are better. I don't have an M3 but I have a 330ci which has the same brakes, and I've had lots of other cars from Corvettes to Mustangs and camaros. Have run that compound a ton.

I think they work just fine. They squealed a bit even after running them in, it stopped however after the first track day where i properly cooked the brakes.

If you want a bit more performance without loosing cold braking, use ferodo ds performance, they're amazing price-quality wise.

Volvo uses ATE, Textar brake pads, Zimmerman, Brembo, ATE rotors. i've been using these volvos for years and have had no problems.

Personally very much like ATE ceramic pads.

OEM brake pads from Audi are mostly good for day to day braking, and some sporty, but not daily very aggressive driving. But they do a lot of dust and noise sometimes. I found the solution to be just change the pads for "ATE Ceramic" if you don't use your car to do track days and very frequent sporty driving. These don't have ceramic components, it's mostly marketing, but they do have two good characteristics from Ceramic pads, mostly zero noise when heated and almost zero dust! And the low dust it produces, it's not black. Breaking power it's maybe a little better coming from OEM, but nothing crazy. Do not use sport discs with ATE Ceramic, the brand actually advises to use normal discs with these.

I switched to the Ferodo DSUno. I am satisfied with its performance, but they seem to struggle because of something. Today, after the track day on Saturday, I checked it and found a crack and a gnawed edge. Also, they have uneven wear, about 0.5-1mm difference. The differences are between the top and bottom parts of the pads, front and back parts and on different sides of the same rotor (inner and outer pads). Uneven wear was with the old pads as well. Recently, I installed brake air ducts, and after going out from the track, the temperature was, in the worst case, 480C degree, which looks fine for these pads. In total, I drove for about 3 hours on tracks, one on a wet track (so no hard braking) and two moderately/hard(8-9/10) braking. The brake rotors are also new, Zimmermann blank, installed with pads. The initial thickness of the pads is 16.4mm (with the plate, the plate is 5.5mm, so the "pure" pad is about 11mm) Currently, I have eaten about 4.5-5mm of the pads in 3 hours of tracking.

Brakes feel fine when driving, but after they cool and I go out again, the pedal feels spongey. A few hard stabs and it returns to normal, until I come in and let it cool. No fade while driving, and pads survived despite having been on the car for over 2 years of road use, although they need replacing now really.

I hated Ferodo DS2500 on the street. Because they need to be warm to perform. And if I am driving on a highway for couple minutes or through a city, they loose the heat and perform badly for a bit.