Brake pads OEM Mazda or Duralast

Sure OEM pads and calipers can stop a loaded truck on the street, but what about when your loaded truck is on a long downhill rough trail? Your brakes get very hot and you can get brake fade and too much heat can damage components, warp rotors, etc (especially after hot brakes meet cool puddle or creek crossing). I went with Dynamic Friction Ultimate Duty pads and I am glad I did because i hit a bunch of those downhill trails the next trip and they got hot, could smell them, but no brake fade and no issues since.

My 2017 is a bone stock daily driver and I have no plans to do any major upgrades or track my car. That being said, I've never had an issue with duralast gold pads and rotors from autozone. Reasonably priced and the pads have a lifetime warranty, meaning you buy them once and can trade the used ones back in for a new set at any time, no questions asked. The rotors have a 3 year warranty and even though mine are only showing some very minor wear, I'm going to take advantage of the warranty and swap them out for a new set in the next few months befor my 3 years is up.

I'm using Dynamic Friction pads from RockAuto and they haven't let me down, grey performance and heat barely affects it.

Lasted through two track days and still have a ton of pad life left.

AutoZone Duralast Ceramics have basically lasted forever. They have a lifetime replacement for free, so I paid like $100 for front pads once, and gotten em free since. Easy DIY.

I inherited a 2011 cx7 from my parents who purchased this car new. They have always kept care of their vehicles. This is a non turbo model. Other than normal maintenance items they had replaced the AC compressor. Since I took it over in 2020, I replaced drive side front wheel bearing and passenger front caliper, brake pads all the way around plus normal maintenance items. 320,000km runs perfectly.

I just put Duralast Elite Ceramic pads and Duralast Gold rotors on my 2017 5.0 and have been very pleased with them. While not physically measured I’m of the opinion stopping distance has been reduced. Everything you need is in the box and rotors are coated to resist corrosion and have no film to remove before installation.

Did all brakes and rotors with top duralast gold and heavy duty ceramic pads- maybe 600

Seems a bit sus - but it's not unusual for rear pads to wear faster than front on certain cars. My Ford Flex and CX-50 both wear pads faster out back (it made sense on the Flex because of long wheelbase but was surprised the 50 did it too). That said they should last twice as long.

oem brake pads are ceramic (low noise, low dust, minimal rotor wear, less bite)

Just had a dealer give me an estimate of $560 for new rear pads and rotors. Unfortunately, the idiot was going by mileage and he never actually looked to see that I just replaced the pads and rotors myself 10,000 miles ago. That was on my 2016 Mazda CX 5.