Brake pads Textar or OEM Volvo

Keep it stock. VW went to lotsa trouble to pick out the pads for your car. FWIW I still uses OEM Textar pads on my E46 M3 vert.

I replaced mine with Textar epad ceramic pads and Zimmerman rotors and I have been satisfied so far. There is slightly less bite with a ceramic pad vs OEM but also has much less dust.

I am happy with Textar pads, no noticeable squealing, but they do make the wheels dusty fairly quickly. Previous pads were Pagid and they were just horrible, squealing, no brakes when cold, etc.

Who the hell told you the C30 is unreliable. My mechanic started his own shop after working for the big regional volvo dealership for 15 years. He told me that of all the Volvos he ever worked on the C30 stood out significantly as being the most reliable. It was built on the P2 chassis, but since it came out years after the first P2 chassis cars, it was able to have a lot of significant improvements/upgrades/fixes over the other, older P2 cars. He told me that over time the mechanics would get so frustrated whenever a C30 came in, because every single time all it would need was a basic oil change or brake pad replacement, never any major work.

I got Zimmerman rotors and Textar brake pads for my 2013 550i with the M package. Everything is been working great for the last 6 months.

At the shop I run, we use textar pads on Zimmerman rotors. For some reason textar on textar always make noise on BMWs ( we elevated our complaints all the way to Textar, and they sent a rep to finally shrug). Pagid pads are ok, but I find they wear out more quickly.

My go to brake pad is Textar. Why? Less problems. Since I own a shop, any warranty issue is wasted time. I will not charge a client to make it right. I do not have time to do the job a second time.

Brake rotors are ATE and pads are Textar.

My factory textar pads would do this after a rain, or whenever it was humid out after about 50000 miles. I replaced them with some hawk hps pads and zimmerman rotors, no more squeak now! Although I am not in love with the Hawk HPS pads, a lot of people recommend them, and while I do agree they bite pretty good when they've got some heat in them, the cold bite is actually pretty bad for a "street" pad.

Last time it went for a service I was advised rear brake pads are 90% worn and needed changing (they had fitted new rear brake pads 8 months previously).