Akebono pads are awesome. I used to be big on centric rotors but they have change and the quality is not there anymore.
I Used akebono in the front and wagoners on the rear. No issues so far.
I did a ton of research recently before doing my brakes and almost pulled the trigger on Hawk 5.0. Great overall reviews, but also people stating they make noise at slow speed, like parking lot maneuvering. Also they are great for street/track but for me who is 80% street and the rest canyon I got the feedback they are a bit aggressive for a mostly daily driver. I started looking into and ended up choosing Akebono, they honestly feel just like OEM, zero complaints, and way less dust of course.
Akebono Ultra-Premium Ceramic Brake Pads, very well known in the racing community to be the best of the best OE Replacement pads that run on your stock calipers. The only better pads than these require a full Brembo caliper conversion. Buy Japanese. More expensive, doesn't mean better. For reference: I drive a 2007 Subaru Forester, Akebono is the Original Manufacturer for the OEM "Subaru" Brake Pads from the factory.
I have always gone with Akebono pads and centric rotors. It's a great combo.
I've used Akebono Euro Ceramic pads on my MK7.5 R and S5 Sportback and they were great and basically no dust.
I used to have an IS350 and with the genuine Lexus pads on, an insane amount of brake dust and squealing. Replaced with Akebono Performance ultra premium ceramics and never had an issue with noise or dust afterwards.
My Mercedes is much older W210, but for the brakes I went with Zimmerman Coat Z rotors and Akebono Euro ceramic pads. The front pads have been on for about 30k miles and are not even close to needing replacement. And they leave almost no brake dust, so my wheels look clean all the time now. Only real downside is they have a bit less initial bite than the oem pads, but I have actually come to prefer the more linear braking feel and haven't had any problems with stopping power.
I'm in the "Akebono are not better" camp and I have done some extensive testing.For a ceramic pad, yes, the Akebono are better than ceramic competitors. However, they do not have as much bite as the semi-metallic pads. This is something that can't be debated, they can't bite as hard as the semi-metallic compound.I too hate brake dust and tried the Akebono pads on my wife's VW and I immediately noticed that they didn't bite as hard as the OE pads. That same week, I ordered the OE pads and it fixed the problem.I've also tried the Akebono on an E350 and I came to the same conclusion. I actually think the EBC Red ceramics may bite a little more (when new) than the Akebono. However, the EBC reds always left this weird deposit on rotors that would make it feel like they were warped and they would need to be turned down.
Very surprised that you guys are fans of Akebonos... Had them in the wife's Z4 and found the initial bite and overall braking performance to be much much weaker than the OEM BMW pads... It was bad to the point that I removed them a couple months in and just got Pagid pads for it...
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