Brake pads POWER STOP or Raybestos

Autozone has the full kit. Just changed mine not too long ago and they are great so far.

I recently replaced my factory Kia front pads with some EHT's. Did not replace rotors, just cleaned and removed some rust on them. Applied some caliper grease to the proper areas and these pads so far have been really nice. A VERY noticeable difference vs. the factory pads in stopping power. My only complaint was that Raybestos did not include new pad retainer springs in the box.

My Sport M6 just hit 1000 miles and I was already so sick of brake dust on the rear wheels I installed a set of Power Stop ceramics. The job took less than an hour using OBD11 to put the calipers into service mode. I decided to do it early before the rotors experienced unparallel wear to the OEM semi-metallic pads.

Powerstop works better than Bosch in my opinion for brakes, but I would see if you could find regular rotors instead of the drilled & slotted ones. Drilled & slotted rotors are only worth paying for if you plan on abusing your cars brakes.

QuietCast pads are a solid choice. Centric is an OEM supplier and those are a fully coated rotor, so also a solid choice. If you want to spend a little extra, I’d go for Akebono pads. I ran their pad and rotor kit on my old Mazda 3 and they worked phenomenally but, ate through the pads pretty quick under normal city driving. No issues up until I sold the car.

After lots of research I did Powerstops about 10K miles ago and absolutely love them!! I’ve done lots of brakes jobs on multiple different Toyota/Lexus trucks/SUV’s and normally OEM perform best, and I wouldn’t normally do drilled/slotted, but on these big heavy Sequoias they really perform so great…highly recommend!

My 2020 needed front pads at 24k, rear at 32k. I installed Powerstop kits instead of oem.

Firstly, thank god you’re getting rid of the stock Falkens, because they’re garbage. But as far as the brakes, it’s common. Mazda OE brakes are notoriously short lived. If you don’t want to be right back in the same boat in another 20,000 miles, put on a set of PowerStops or R1 Concepts and you’ll not have to worry about it again for a long time.

i went with Raybestos Element, after reading they performed OK, and the price is fairly inexpensive. so far OK with minor issues. during installation, i shaved a hair off the pad material and the pad ears to get them to fit not as tightly. and after installation, the pad sometimes makes a click sound when changing direction of travel, or sudden acceleration after a complete stop. i think the pad is moving around in its mount and making a sound. did some searching and this might even happen with OEM to some people. i added more grease to the pad backing, noise went away for a few weeks, but later returned.

If that quote is just for pads, it's not a ripoff. it's criminal!!! Do yourself a favor and buy powerstop, install them yourself, and save a fortune. Scat brakes are ridiculously easy to work on.