Brake pads OEM Subaru or STOPTECH
I've been on Stoptech 309 pads for all 4 years of my car. Winter, Daily and Track. The pads will fade if you get serious enough. I just changed them to Endless MX72 pads I found a deal on rhdjapan.com. They are better in every way.
My blew through the stock pads AND rotors in 25k.
Put on the StopTech pad rotor/pad kit and the Mountune steel lines.
While this setup had less bite than the stock setup, it was just as powerful and more controllable/progressive.
They also lasted WAY longer than stock, no squeal, and very little brake dust.
I personally find the stock brakes to be too grabby for me to comfortably heel toe. I switched to the Stop tech street pads and loved them.
I run the StopTech "Street" performance pads with EBC slotted rotors and can 100% vouch for each. Outstanding quality and performance. I really push my brakes on occassion and this combo outperformed my expectations which were fairly high to begin with. Bonuses- very low dust and zero noise.
I was hugely disappointed, because the pads are great. TBH, it's basically a low- to mid-tier race pad, so the price is not that ridiculous. I put quite a few track days on them and after trying out some other aftermarket pads, I actually went back to the OEM pads for 3-season street use.
My choices were EBC slotted front rotors and StopTech "Street" performance brake pads. Major improvement over oe in stopping distance and resistance to brake fade.
Pads, lines, fluid are a lot less and make a huge difference. No need to go BBK or retrofit unless like others brought up. Track it, Auto-X it, or push it on some backroads often. If you have the Performance Pack, the PP brakes are even better. I did an OEM+ refresh on my IS38 MK7. Stoptech slotted, Stoptech SS lines, Stoptech STR600 fluid, EBC Red pads. Still non PP factory rotor size, but brake fade comes on much further out for me now. Gives me a healthy window to enjoy pushing the car before fade kicks in. Tires matter and help more for braking difference. So if that's what you're chasing. Get a really good set of summer compounds on the car.
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.
How were the brakes? My concern with towing is the brakes. I have not towed anything mainly for this reason. I find the brakes to be a weak point of the car and the rear pads wear out very quickly, on the 2013 version anyway. I am not a heavy footed driver, no fast starts, no slamming of brakes at lights and stop signs. Keep things nice and smooth, no riding of brakes, no fast corners which would engage the rear brakes more due to the vector control system (whatever they call it). Rear brakes wear fast and overall braking is fair. Your thoughts from a trailer perspective? Thx!!!
Stop tech pads have a lot of brake dust. I had them and hated them. I went with the power stop pads low dust on all four and powerstop drill and slotted rotors up front. I already had stop tech slotted in the rear.
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