(08-01-2014, 12:49 PM)cully Wrote: EBC had a lot of bad press cause of pads breaking up and also squealing but since then they have turned themselves around and made improvments.
but as always bad press is hard to shake off
EBC greens were half the price of uprated mintex pads for me so i think its a no brainer
and im happy with them
I've had personal experience with Greens breaking up, although to be fair they were in a 200 + bhp Nissan so not really appropriate for the job at hand, when I bought the car the previous owner said he had recently fitted uprated pads and a cursory glance confirmed this so I serviced the rest of the car (increasing the boost a bit
) but leaving the brakes alone and for a few days they were OK but then they 'went off' quite dramatically and when I removed them I was shocked how bad they were, the friction material was simply crumbling and peeling from the backing, once you've seen this it's difficult not to form a adverse opinion on EBC, I'm currently using Yellows and these were bought solely on price (I basically couldn't afford Mintex 1155s) and it's so far so good I can't really fault them especially considering money, so I'd agree EBC seem to have made great strides in performance and quality.(08-01-2014, 01:03 PM)powerandtorque Wrote: Also you need to remember that in many cases replacing the tired worn out no names pads that a previous owner fitted years ago with a decent OE quality replacement would yield a significant improvement on its own and almost certainly be more than sufficient for road use if the rest of the braking system is upto scratch.
Personally, I would go with Ferodo, Carbon Lorraine or Mintex if I were wanting something uprated beyond OE.
if you have never pad related brake fade then premium OE spec pads are likely to be more than adequate, and I agree the makes you mention would all be top of a uprated pad list but is at this point that care needs to be taken, you will certainly improve the brake systems ability to function well at much higher temps but you can also introduce problems with cold temp bite, noise, dust, pad material transfer disc wear etc, the more race / track oriented the pads the worse the problems tend to be
So maybe EBC do have a natural home and could be described as 'lightly uprated' filling the gap between OE and a more specialised (compromised ? ) uprated pad.
BTW I've just priced up EBC Greens for the wifes Golf and they are £58 compared to £30 for EBC OE spec and £22 for Mintex (motor factor trade price) so guess what thr Golf will be getting Mintex OE replacements