Brake pads ATE or OEM Volkswagen

Mk6 2.5L A/T. They just work. Brakes last forever, no engine or transmission issues, none of the weird mk4 body problems with windows or wipers, just great cars.

stick with ATE or akebono. both good for their price. have ran both on my e39 and they work great with their respective rotors

FWIW I wound up with those Brembo front and Zimmerman coated rears with ATE ceramic pads and I’m very happy with it. To me the stock setup is grabby at low speeds and these are much smoother. I don’t feel like I’ve lost any stopping power. Huge difference in brake dust.

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.

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 use Ate pads on mine, they feel great and have lasted fairly well but dust like CRAZY.

Even the parts prices are on a different level, ie brake pads with a Volvo logo on them - 160€, with ATE (they allegedly produce the original pads too) logo - 60€...

My front brake rotors warped at ~12K miles. I had them machined and they lasted about another 12k until I replaced them with aftermarket Centric. Those lasted ~12K miles until they warped. At this time I went back to VW OEM rotors and they lasted ~12k miles. I had the OEM's machined, but now they are warped again. Along the way I tried some aftermarket pads, and generally had problems I purchased a pair at NAPA and they were sloppy in the caliper and would shift and click when applying the brakes in reverse. Went back to OEM on the pads and have no problems.

I noticed my M3 HB 1.5l 2020 (second hand) has rear ATE brakes. The car has 29k km on the clock and at 10km/h I can hear intermittent squeaks from what I'd assume are the brakes which sounds like there's some contact between the rotor and pads at specific point and only seems to happen when the brakes are warmer so no idea what's going on there.