Brake pads OEM Mazda or OEM Volkswagen

Car drives great-- the new brake / pad combination gives it a firmer pedal feel than the stock setup (which I found pretty soft/grabby in comparison). It's not Porsche-firm but its world's better than the stock setup-- for comparison it's much lighter than the pedal in something like a Porsche 993, but quite a bit firmer / less grabby than the stock setup on recent BMWs. I greatly prefer the firmer feel to the stock setup, as I find it more confidence-inspiring and it makes for much easier heel/toe downshifting.

I bought a VR6 4Motion wagon for my mom 4 years ago, and it's still running great. The brakes are a bit overboosted, and are very grabby, but once you get used to it, it's actually not bad at all.

On a positive note- the brakes were sporty car firm and easy to modulate even with these tires.

Phaeton brake pads have a sensor attached that when pads have worn sufficiently thin, the sensor will wear through and provide the brake warning light to illuminate. The warning means that you need to replace the pads in the near future.

Rear brake pads replaced at 42k.

Hmm, I find my Golf TDI brakes to be excellent. Havent tracked them, but have punished them on occasion with liberal use of power on the highway, even combined with going down hill, and have never experienced fade.

I thought the biggest let down of the stock mk7 GTI brakes where the ****ty stock pads cooking very easily, but with a good set of pads and fluid where pretty descent.

Pay attention to the brakes. For what it is worth ... I have a 2010 Routan SE which has been great except for the brakes. I bought the car new and the brakes it came with (rear) lasted 17,000 mi.

In my experience the OEM Mazda Miata "Value" brake pads have absolutely horrible initial bite characteristics and require much more pedal pressure to achieve a given level of deceleration than aftermarket performance oriented brake pads.

The brakes are **** for anything but driving on the street, but most people know that already.