Brake pads ATE or Hella Pagid

I literally just did exactly this.. Had the BRAKE warning light on the dash and replace rear brakes on Idrive message on my 2019 X3 M40i at 32k miles.. rear rotors looked fine to me.. they were smooth and not grooved.. so i bought OEM ATE PADS and a BOWA rear brake sensor.. $128 shipped from Pelican parts and i was charged 1 hour of labor ($135) at my local Indy shop.. as others have mentioned youtube is your friend.. just a rear pads replacement is a pretty easy job w basic tools.. I should have done it myself but I decided the $135 cost was not worth my time and effort.

I'm running the cheapest coated rotors from rockauto and Pagid "OE" pads and I'm happy with it.

I use Pagid RSL29s on my M3, I don't bother switching pads after events. They work great on the street but I'm in Texas so it rarely gets below 45 degrees here. They squeal but the dust isn't too bad. I don't daily it but I wouldn't have an issue if I did. The squeal is annoying but really not too bothersome to me even though I drive 95% of the time with my windows down.

During this time I also replaced the brake pads with oem ATE one’s (low dust) and oem brake fluid flush.

Regular carbon ceramic brake pads, from Ate and I presume also Brembo, are better than normal pads. Same stopping power but much less heat generation and brake dust.

I put ATE200 + Ferodo DS2500 pads on my Mk7 in prep for its one (half) trackday, have been on for a few thousand street miles and work well at all temps.

I'm really liking the ATE pads I got for my 340i with the brembo F/Rs.

I went with the pads from ATE and got them fitted today, all in all it cost around 200 USD / 2000 SEK. 2 years ago the mechanic told me all 4 brakes need replacing. Today when they were replaced the rear ones had about half of the material left and the front 1/3.

I've been researching brake pads recently since I was looking for something to replace my awful Akebono pads up front. What I've learned is that Textar and Pagid are OEM pads and will have the "BMW brake feel". Textars are usually on the rears and Pagid on the fronts. Bosch is supposedly not quite as good as the other two. I bought the Pagid pads and man, what an improvement from the Akebono. I can stop again without having to jam on the brakes.

You'll need decent pads, and ones that can handle a car with a bit of weight behind it, think Pagid RSL29, Winmax W5 or Mintex 1166 if you're not going mad. You'll want to flush out your brake fluid and replace it with something that will take the heat as the tiny brakes on a 325i WILL overheat, its not a matter of if, its a matter of when, good fluid will stop you from boiling it and crashing!