Cost efficient but capable rear pads
Discussion
Car is a almost full weight mk5 golf gti running 260bhp. Currently running ebc bluestuff pads on resr which have been great but have worn very fast (2/3 track days max with 1 track day). They're 100 quid a set for just the rear brakes and don't seemingly last very long at all so wondering what others run for a fwd setup like this on the rear? If I could get away with an oem or ECP brembo pads for pennies then that would be great but not sure if they'll just fade almost immediately.
Pagid RS29, whilst not cheap, will last much longer than the Bluestuff. Whether they wil last more than twice as long for twice the price, I'm not sure. I got about 10 trackdays out a set on the front of my E30 but that's a much lighter car.
In my experience Bluestuff are quite good value for money. Yes they wear faster, but for road use with just a couple trackdays chucked in they are cheap and effective. Could it be the stability control is activating frequently and wearing them prematurely?
In my experience Bluestuff are quite good value for money. Yes they wear faster, but for road use with just a couple trackdays chucked in they are cheap and effective. Could it be the stability control is activating frequently and wearing them prematurely?
FYI there is no stability control. Its been coded out so that's not the issue here. The rears obviously not that hot if bluestuff copes fine with some pretty long sessions I've run them through, mintex option is more when I checked and tarox strada a little cheaper. Don't mind paying more if I'm going to get loads of use out of them so will check out the pagid now, anything more cost effective whether its more money for more days meaning better value or cheaper pad for frequent replacement without inducing fade with again more value is welcome.
In my experience (e36 BM x 2 & R53 mini) I always found it much better price wise to go pretty much all in.
RS29 or Ferodo DS1.11 on the front & Mintex 1144 or DS2500 on the rear.
Both are full on race/endurance pads & will cost more but last WAY more.
I used to get a full season out of a set & there would still have been enough for another 1/2 season minimum, but I always changed them each year, so way cheaper over the year.
FWIW as was said above, normally rears don't do very much, how are your fronts wearing?
It may also be worth trying to get some more cooling into the rears.
Anecdotally in the early days of using EBC before I learnt better I never got a full TD out of a set, never rated them at all.
RS29 or Ferodo DS1.11 on the front & Mintex 1144 or DS2500 on the rear.
Both are full on race/endurance pads & will cost more but last WAY more.
I used to get a full season out of a set & there would still have been enough for another 1/2 season minimum, but I always changed them each year, so way cheaper over the year.
FWIW as was said above, normally rears don't do very much, how are your fronts wearing?
It may also be worth trying to get some more cooling into the rears.
Anecdotally in the early days of using EBC before I learnt better I never got a full TD out of a set, never rated them at all.
E-bmw said:
In my experience (e36 BM x 2 & R53 mini) I always found it much better price wise to go pretty much all in.
RS29 or Ferodo DS1.11 on the front & Mintex 1144 or DS2500 on the rear.
Both are full on race/endurance pads & will cost more but last WAY more.
I used to get a full season out of a set & there would still have been enough for another 1/2 season minimum, but I always changed them each year, so way cheaper over the year.
FWIW as was said above, normally rears don't do very much, how are your fronts wearing?
It may also be worth trying to get some more cooling into the rears.
Anecdotally in the early days of using EBC before I learnt better I never got a full TD out of a set, never rated them at all.
Wow that is a long time. Sounds a good option. Hard to say on fronts, its been cooking the brakes every trsck day and glazing the pads (ebc rp-1/rp-x), as I've had spares I've always opted to just chuck the spares in but not horrifically. I've just done a OE BBK install on the front to sort the cooling issues and possibly the extra front bias will now mean less wear on the rear? RS29 or Ferodo DS1.11 on the front & Mintex 1144 or DS2500 on the rear.
Both are full on race/endurance pads & will cost more but last WAY more.
I used to get a full season out of a set & there would still have been enough for another 1/2 season minimum, but I always changed them each year, so way cheaper over the year.
FWIW as was said above, normally rears don't do very much, how are your fronts wearing?
It may also be worth trying to get some more cooling into the rears.
Anecdotally in the early days of using EBC before I learnt better I never got a full TD out of a set, never rated them at all.
Yeah I've heard some negativity on EBC but I always like to find stuff out for myself as not everyone's findings are equal frankly but not been impressed either. Feel great when new but don't last long seemingly and get glazed quite easily. Got Pbs pro race on the front of the new setup which I've only heard good things about for a modest price so see how they fair.
It's for a much lighter car (Clio 172) but I've found the PFC pads last fantastically well. I've been using 097 compound They're a bit noisy when cold and chuck out a fair amount of dust, but I've done 10 track days on the fronts and they've got a couple more left in them.
The rears on a clio are basically for decoration only, so any pads last fine. I could probably replace the rear pads with playdough and get the same braking effect.
The rears on a clio are basically for decoration only, so any pads last fine. I could probably replace the rear pads with playdough and get the same braking effect.
indeed, i used to burn through EBC blues even in the rear, they'd only last a couple of trackdays. Switched to performance friction pads PF08 compound, and i could do 10 trackdays no problems.
yes they are expensive, but they last so long they're actually decent value, and you dont have the faff of changing pads every 2 days.
yes they are expensive, but they last so long they're actually decent value, and you dont have the faff of changing pads every 2 days.
well, im now experiencing the same conundrum but for the front of my boxster... seems the standard brembos are nowhere near up to the task. so... seems my options are Brembo sports at £120, EBC yellows for £130, EBC blues for £125, or go for Performance frictions or pagids for £240ish.
despite saying i dont rate them, im thinking of trying ebc blues... problem is, the car is only an occasional track car. if it was dedicated track car i'd go for the performance frictions, but i only do maybe 3-4 trackdays a year, would be good to last that long!
despite saying i dont rate them, im thinking of trying ebc blues... problem is, the car is only an occasional track car. if it was dedicated track car i'd go for the performance frictions, but i only do maybe 3-4 trackdays a year, would be good to last that long!
brillomaster said:
well, im now experiencing the same conundrum but for the front of my boxster...
the car is only an occasional track car. if it was dedicated track car i'd go for the performance frictions, but i only do maybe 3-4 trackdays a year, would be good to last that long!
100% go for Pagids or PFs, as you have seen they cost 2 x the ebc but they will easily do what you want, the ebc will need to be changed at least once if not twice/thrice in the lifetime of the PF/Pagids.the car is only an occasional track car. if it was dedicated track car i'd go for the performance frictions, but i only do maybe 3-4 trackdays a year, would be good to last that long!
Having tried a lot of different pad types across several different cars, I've found endurance pads work out better value than cheaper pads that melt with the heat on track, both for front and rear.
Pad wear varies by car but Winmax W5 are generally my pad of choice, excellent performance and work out great value on front and rear. The Megane is probably pretty comparable and I've included the MX5 rear chart as well so you can see how poorly standard Brembo pads lasted in comparison.
The blue line shows hours of track use per pad (higher the better) and the orange bar shows the the cost per hour of track use (lower the better).
Pad wear varies by car but Winmax W5 are generally my pad of choice, excellent performance and work out great value on front and rear. The Megane is probably pretty comparable and I've included the MX5 rear chart as well so you can see how poorly standard Brembo pads lasted in comparison.
The blue line shows hours of track use per pad (higher the better) and the orange bar shows the the cost per hour of track use (lower the better).
charltjr said:
It’s probably the stability control which is wearing them out, the rears don’t do that much without it.
Yes. The usual problem on FWD cars is rear discs going rusty because in normal driving the rear brakes get so little work to do.What life is OP getting out of the front pads?
I don't know details of the particular car but rear brakes are often smaller/lighter than the fronts and will wear quickly if asked to do an unexpected amount of work. This issue most commonly crops up on cars with "active cruise" which uses rear brakes to slow the car to a previously set cruise speed if you lift off the throttle. Drives me mad!
OP, is it normal for a MK5 to wear rear pads so quickly? I am wondering whether there is a balance issue somewhere in the system.
Rear pads often wear quickly when a caliper upgrade is fitted at the front with piston sizes that are too big (because nobody does the calculations) but your other post suggests factory calipers.
Rear pads often wear quickly when a caliper upgrade is fitted at the front with piston sizes that are too big (because nobody does the calculations) but your other post suggests factory calipers.
Tommie38 said:
OP, is it normal for a MK5 to wear rear pads so quickly? I am wondering whether there is a balance issue somewhere in the system.
Rear pads often wear quickly when a caliper upgrade is fitted at the front with piston sizes that are too big (because nobody does the calculations) but your other post suggests factory calipers.
Not sure. Fronts were a 54mm caliper piston on stock discs, and rears were 41mm caliper, stock rears are 38mm so a little bigger on rear. Rears are also newly rebuilt. They've done 2 trackday and about 1k Road miles, they've got another track day in them but that's about it frankly. Waiting on arrival of new mintex m1155 pads to fit, hoping they last longer.Rear pads often wear quickly when a caliper upgrade is fitted at the front with piston sizes that are too big (because nobody does the calculations) but your other post suggests factory calipers.
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