Pads: there are lots of options, of course. Generally speaking, the better performance a pad offers, the harder it will be on rotors. I like Pagid a lot, as well as Mintex. Akebono makes some nice ceramic pads that offer no dust and reasonable performance. I prefer a really aggressive pad. Most people underestimate that the pads are your biggest, easiest brake upgrade. My favorite pad is Carbotech. They are out of NC. The panther pad is almost a race brake pad. Constant squealing, lots of dust, and you have to warm them up to get them to work. But when you step on it, you're thankful for seat belts.
I ran carbotechs on my mkV, they are absolutely fantastic for the track. A bit scary on the street totally cold but very livable if you make sure to warm them up.
I was running Carbotech Xp12s in the front and XP10s in the rear. That and a good fluid is all it needs, but it's a relatively heavy car so it will take a toll on tires and brakes. Also, MDM (stability control) on the competition pack equipped models allows for quite a bit of of slip (yaw) before intrevening, which is nice whether is a novice driver or just wanting to approach the limit in a safer way. Tires are somewhat pricey especially with the 19" wheels, but not excessively so. A set of PSSs will run around $1400. Oil changes, DIY, are about $150 or so. Spark plugs should be changed at about 20K mile intervals. The only problem I had was a bad evaporator for the A/C which was replaced under warranty (book value on the job is about 9 hours). It's a great daily driver, except for the gas mileage and especially the range. It has a relatively small tank and you'll barely get close to 300 miles per tank. That's the most frustrating bit about it. I do wish it had a slightly bigger tank. The sound is great. It's addictive especially with a nice exhaust system (I highly recommend the M Performance exhaust).
However I have Carbotech brake pads, the 1521's for the street and then for the track day I had XP12 (front) XP10 (rear). Pads are compatible with the rotor, and I had the track pads well bedded in.
nobody mentioned Carbotech 1521 yet? they are pricey but work really well for a DD and have low dust.
Carbotech XP10 Front Pads Only - USED - $45 shipped to U.S. lower 48 -these are proper endurance racing pads (popular in Spec Miata, Spec E30, etc), I wouldn't try to use these on the street -used for 2 track days on my '09 TDI -11.6mm of friction material remaining (approx 85%)
Carbotech Bobcats are an excellent performance oriented street pad, very quiet, great longevity, and fairly low dust.
I absolutely love their XP12/XP10 combo for track-only pads on my Vette
I had an 2017 Outback 2.5, had it since April of 2017 until last week, during that time I put on 93k km on it. I wish I had gotten the 3.6, I got the 2.5 hoping to save fuel, my average was around 25mpg for lifetime, and I drive a lot on hwy and country road, I never once was able to hit the 30mpg even if it's just me in the car and driving 50mph on the country road, this part I really feel like Subaru should correct their mpg reading, in winter it can get as bad as 18mpg in the freezing weather, as when it's cold the transmission will make the engine constantly rev at higher to warm it up, the 2.5 is also not a smooth engine when at idle, I had a vibration issue that was deemed normal. Overall, it's a reliable car, but its not a durable car, another thing is, when taking off quickly from a stop, it can really bog down, most people are used to first gear and just boot, but these CVT don't have first gear and it can be rather unexpected, I've almost got hit from behind a couple times from that. The eyesight is a good feature, the lane departure can be annoying at times but I was ok with it, these cars have an issue with windshield chipping, and if the car has eyesight, the windshield need to be a specific one and then the eyesight needs to be re-calibrated, this happened to me TWICE, and it got expensive very quick. OEM tires are lousy, by lousy I mean it doesn't even get good mpg, doesn't get good grip in ANY condition and puncture easily if you take it to any sort of gravel road, I had puncture the tire within 1200km, I just got some decent A/T tires after, no problem for the last 90k. The brakes are soft, so first thing I did was changed the pads.
my local Subaru dealership listed my brake pads as needing replacement soon when they were literally brand new. That was because their system simply saw that I had 40,000 miles and had no record of the replacement. Nobody had actually examined my car to see if it needed brake pads.
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