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 got their slotted rotors and red stuff pads. Installed them myself but had a strange kind of raspy grinding sound when braking. Figured it was just them breaking in. After a few days of this I decided to take the wheels back off and take a look. Turns out I had installed all 4 caliper clips backwards. Switching them around fixed the issue. Braking was pretty aggressive for the first week or two then smoothed out which they mention on the product page. Now it's quiet and smooth although more aggressive bite in then the oem pads, especially when cold.
OK, just giving an update. I am really enjoying these breaks. I think they are a lot better than my first assumption of 30%. I was just in a quick stop situation and they are very good
For generic JDM/American cars, we install Power stop. Parts House has good wholesale pricing on them, and 0 comebacks.
EBC pads and rotors are good for normal or amateur competition use. As any other, just needs good bed in procedure. Their rotors are not drilled, which is great for normal street cars.
In my personal vehicles I like to use Powerstop. No noise, pulsation, low dust, ok pedal feel.
Just installed the powerstops yesterday. Did the break in, and they feel much better than the basics i had on. You can feel the stopping power by i would say 30% more than just regular rotors and pads.
I installed power stop brakes a year ago. I have a 2004 V6, with the smaller caliper. The power stop is a huge upgrade. Been off-road with them, downhill coming from lake Tahoe with my family of 5 and full load, towed a few thousand lbs to the dump, brakes did great. I swapped because my rotors always warped, after 3 full rotor changes I had enough.
if the "powerstop track day" pads are offered in your application, those are the cheapest things I've found that will sort of work for a track day. and by that, I mean at novice or slow intermediate pace for my platform.
I tried blue stuff and wasn't impressed at all, I burned through them in a day.
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