Brake pads Brembo or Akebono

The stock pads on my 3.6 4-motion were made by Pagid and were very sensitive and dusty. I changed out the fronts only to Akebono Euro Ceramics and I like the feel much better. Plus, they don't dust at all.

Akebono Euro Ceramic has great cold bite, even in cold snowy weather. The downside? It lacks a "linear" feel.

All pads have been bed in right. I have Porterfield R4S on rear and Akebono Cermacis on front.

I've had Centric rotors and Akebono pads on my MINI Cooper S for almost two years now. Since then there has been 40,000 miles, 3 track days, and a season of auto cross. I'd say they perform on par or above with the OEM step. The pads are definitely a step up with less noise and hardly any brake dust.

I have a set of unknown, but probably OEM pads on the rear brakes on my wagon and they spew dust like crazy, when the fronts wore down I replaced them with akebonos.. no dust, no noise, no issues in 20k miles.

I trust companies like Brembo or mintex to make decent, quality parts more than I trust Volvo to supply some. Volvo themselves don't make brake components. On my 240 for example the front brakes are Girling and the rears are ATE.

I have never put on a set of OEM pads & have had 0 issues. My S80 came with them and honestly I think the akebonos I replaced them with are better. The only bad thing about the cheap (duralast, I'm looking at you) pads is that they screech a lot if you don't coat the back in DBQ.

I just bought a set of them and put them on my R32. However I havent had a chance to try them yet as im still Flinstone status.

Slap on a set of Akebono ceramic brake pads, and you've got a car ready to take on any highway or race track \u2014 and that's exactly what Flieger is doing with it.

I have the R56S brakes on my R53, and I've had Brembo ceramic pads and cross-drilled rotors since I installed the calipers a little over a year ago. I'd recommend the pads, although I can't comment on how much they dust, because I have white wheels and any dust on them seems like a lot. The drilled rotors look awesome and perform really well, but my issue is that they have slightly warped since I put them on last year. If you decide to go the Brembo route, I'd probably recommend doing the slotted rotors instead of the drilled to prevent the warping.