Brake pad wear varies massively from one vehicle to another and from various types of use.

The lifetime for brake pads can vary from 6000 to 100,000 and is dependent on numerous things.

With all things normal most car rear brakes last about twice as long as the fronts. On Light trucks, the wear front to back can be about equal due to the loads involved and things like proportioning valves sharing the brake load.

Here are the things that affect pad wear life

• Pad compound choice – Buying the wrong hardness or friction level of pad for an application can cause big variations in wear rate so be sure to read manufacturer websites and get the right grades for your type of vehicle and use if you鈥檙e using a vehicle on the track it鈥檚 a whole lot more complicated, see our website .
• Mismatch of pad grade front to rear – Many modern vehicles have ABS and load sensing valves or proportioning valves. Unless you鈥檙e going to make some physical changes to your vehicle’s brake system you need to use a similar grade of pad front and rear. The industry accepted pad friction grades are shown below.

Try to keep the rear pad friction grade equal to or LOWER than the front. Never put a higher-grade friction in the rear unless you have an adjustable bias valve for example, as used on certain race cars and can adjust for that imbalance. Not a thing the everyday mechanic should get involved with.

Most car and Light truck pads are FF, FE or GF, GG grades. The higher the first letter (Initial brake effect) the higher the grip of the pads.

EBC pad materials are regularly tested by the USA control group AMECA who are responsible for these standards and tests and as you can see all EBC pads offer a theoretical upgrade over stock if you look at the AMECA letters. Although these are 鈥渋ndicative鈥� numbers or letters, brake performance is more about brake torque than the mere friction letter but it鈥檚 a good start, otherwise the FMVSS wouldn鈥檛 insist everyone labels their pads. Brake torque is a discussion for another day.

Most OEM car and light truck pads are of grades FE or FF

Other things that can affect pad wear rates are:

• Poor rotor condition 鈥� Badly scored rotors rapidly escalate pad wear.
• Dragging brake caliper 鈥� Every 3-5 years calipers should be serviced and resealed, especially single piston sliding types.
• Proportioning valve problems – If you read any forums, you will see there are all sorts of issues with people experiencing low front brake pressure and low rear brakes pressure which will dramatically affect brake effect and pad wear. So, your proportioning valve (*especially if it is a load bias type linked to your vehicle suspension) must be functioning properly.

HERE’S WHY

There are people who 鈥淪ell鈥� brake pads and those who make them鈥� EBC does both and because we actually make all the brakes we sell, it stands to reason we know quite a lot about different friction materials. EBC has its own fully qualified R and D engineers, more than ten dynamometers, full chemistry, and test labs with shear test, density test, hardness testing, everything required to be a world-class brake pad manufacturer and have over 200 pad blends in our arsenal, the latest and best 6 of which forms today’s EBC range.

EBC sells both automotive and Motorcycle brakes but in this article, we will address only the automotive range we make.

The following article represents our opinion and findings over 40 years of making over 100 million sets of brake pads, quite a lot of experience. Our findings differ from a lot of verbiage that is on the market today and we hope you enjoy it’s reading.

Understanding the materials or systems that go into brake pads is an interesting starting point. Brake pads include resins to stick the pad elements/material together, fiber to bind the pads during manufacture, fillers to bulk out the pad, and then a collection of ingredients to enhance the pad friction levels and fade resistance. Abrasives and even lubricants are used in the design of a balanced pad and then noise reduction ingredients to dampen vibration and therefore noise.

And it can save you 10-15%

Here’s why

Benefit Number 1

First of all you should never use old or worn pads on a new rotor. That will cause localised hot spotting, major loss of brakes for the first 1000-1500 miles and may even cause complete brake failure as minimal contact area will lead to brake fade.

So you are going to have to buy new pads anyway鈥hy not buy them as a matched brake KIT.

You CAN put new pads on a used rotors BUT bed in times will be longer unless you have the older/used rotors skimmed. For this we always recommend an on car brake lathe by Pro cut which now only smooth the brake surface to reduce bed in times , they realign and bring the braking surfaces back to parallel.

EBC uses a surface coating of their pads called Brake-In which greatly reduces bed in times.

Benefit Number 2

No manufacturer will warranty their pads with other rotors and the same for one brand of rotor with some other pad brand. So the logic of buying a matched pair that have been designed to work as a pair and are tested as a pair is pretty convincing.

Plus if something does go wrong with either the pad or the rotors, how do you know which part has caused the issue if you buy them separately.

Benefit Number 3

You save money on the buying price and in most cases also on the shipping as you get one box not two. Pads usually come in at about 4-5lbs where rotors weight up to 5 times that amount so adding your pads into the rotor shipment which usually mean you pay little or nothing extra for the pads to jockey along with those heavier rotors.

EBC build several thousand pad and rotor kits just for this reason and sell most of their products in KIT form for this exact reason.

You can mix and match your kit from 4 rotor styles and 6 pad choices from EBC, all guaranteed to match , fit and work perfectly as a kit.

to choose your ideal pads and rotors then ask for the appropriate kit from one of our re sellers

91传媒’ Redstuff is a premium ceramic granule-enhanced brake pad, available now for all modern cars including hatchbacks/hot hatches, sedans, and muscle cars, and are now available for Trucks and SUV under the new 2022 ED plus brake pad range from EBC

Why Ceramic? Longer life, less noise, and less dust!

Environmental legislation compliance is job number one at EBC and EBC RedStuff has always been fully compliant with that aspect and includes no other hidden toxic ingredients such as lead, nickel, copper, or antimony sulfides and certainly no asbestos.

A true premium brake pad with the highest performance for fastest highway speeds, silent braking, and long life, EBC Redstuff pads are an Aramid fiber-based pad enhanced with the addition of Ceramic Granules ( not fibers ).

EBC Redstuff is probably the lowest dusting brake pad on the market but even the small amount of dust arising after miles of driving is simply removed during vehicle washing as the EBC restuff contains ZERO metallic or steel fibers common in 95% of all other brake pads and is, therefore, a true nonmetallic pad blend.

Metallic fibers or steel fibers are low-cost replacements for the manufacture of brake pads but can create hot sparks which can etch into your wheel alloys or lacquers.

EBC Redstuff Ceramic brake pads, therefore, reduce not only the dusting of wheels but are a state-of-the-art true performance pad that lasts as long or longer than typical OEM semi-metallic pads.

Redstuff Ceramic Available for all modern cars, if you drive an SUV or Light truck your pad choice would be the Aramid fiber EBC Greenstuff or the new Red coded ED Extra duty grade pads which also include ceramic particles which extend life in heavy-duty applications such as towing or higher loads and are the perfect choice for these applications.

If you wish to drive your car on a race track occasionally EBC Bluestuff would be your choice but all EBC pad grades can be selected here together with your matching rotors.

Bedding in your new EBC Redstuff Ceramic pads is simple as the pads are supplied with the unique EBC Brake-in 聽friction surface coating which gently cleans up the surface of your rotors, new or used, removing glaze, rust, or deposits from previous pads over the first 40-50 miles of driving leaving your new pads seated and ready to use.

Typical bed in times to achieve full performance can be as much as 500 miles as the pads align perfectly to your new or used rotors. Drive thoughtfully during this bed-in period to get the best from your new pads and reduce localised glazing that can happen on slightly off flat used rotors which have not been skimmed and aligned to your car.