Brake pads Bosch or Mintex

Bosch’s Quietcast brakes have never done me wrong. I’ve used them in three vehicles now and had good pad life and performance on a budget. No squeaks, decent life for ceramics.

Adam's front and rear ventilated rotors. Mintex front and rear brake pads. Motul DOT 5.1 Synthetic brake fluid. Goodridge G - Stop stainless steel braided brake lines.

Honestly for everyday driving the Bosch and centric is a good combo. The powerstop are very grabby and have a bit more stopping power but it’s not worth the extra money, plus long term normal rotors are better. Drilled/slotted don’t have as much durability

Yes to the Bosch/Centric combo. No to drilled rotors on a daily driver.

I had this problem too and I saw in other forums quite a few other people as well. I used Bosch pads too I think (can’t recall right now) but when I compared them to the OeM ones I removed, there was a difference similar the the gaps you pointed to in your pic. Putting the old OEM ones back and the gap is not there. So what I ended up doing was simply added a bit of shim to one side of the Bosch pad to take up the gap and the problem went away. I put the shim only on one side, the side that would be compressed when in reverse. FWIW others have tried other brands of pads and they all seem to have the same issue. Apparently the only ones that don’t are the OEM ones for some strange reason. When I compared mine, it wasn’t the pad backing that was causing the delta, it was the shim.

I'm very happy with Bosch QuietCast pads and rotors.

While I am not overly impressed with the stopping power for the price, I am impressed with how much less they wear after a track day.

New brakes. All OEM replacements, however the Bosch pads are a bit squeaky

You wanna avoid mintex red box these days. The passat pads have a slight problem with burning up under hard braking.

Not to sound mean, but Mintex redbox are terrible pads.