Can someone tell me what are the best brake pads to put on the EOS? Mine don't squeek but make plenty of brake dust and dirty the wheels really fast. thanks in advance

You have to be careful about what you mean by 'Best'. If you want the 'best' low fade stopping brakes you can probably find an HH type pad - but they will be so hard they will probably eat your discs. The OEMs may be HH, because I noticed when I took out the old OEM pads, the surfaces went rusty brown pretty quick. That means they are putting steel in the composition, whereas they used to use softer brass.

Look at it this way, brake dust (as opposed to metal filings from the discs) probably means they are a softer Kevlar based composition. OK you may get more unsightly dust, but that's a damn sight better than paying out for new discs.

Are you using the brakes too much and engine braking not enough?

The last pads I put in were aftermarket non-oem German branded pads with EU standards markings.

I put ceramic compound pads on my last car (a VW Bora) because I was fed up with the amount of dust on my wheels all the time. The ceramics certainly cure the dust problem but it is a trade-off, they did not have the same bite as a softer pad but when you really needed them they worked extremely well with no fade. You have to change your driving style a little when changing to ceramic pads.

Adam

do the ceramics make any noise? Are they rough on the rotors? Thanks

I've experimented with 'harder' pads by just replacing one side only: the car very markedly pulls to side of the 'softer' pad. Pretty obvious really, so my recommendation would be to stick to OEM pads or similar specification and find a better way to clean those wheels.

I've experimented with 'harder' pads by just replacing one side only: the car very markedly pulls to side of the 'softer' pad. Pretty obvious really, so my recommendation would be to stick to OEM pads or similar specification and find a better way to clean those wheels.

Kind of reminds me of something that used to be said in TV commercials when seat belts were first introduced to vehicles in the mid 50s.

"I won't wear them because they feel too restrictive and wrinkle my clothes" The next picture you see is someone in the hospital wearing a full body cast.

I would much rather have soft pads with fantastic stopping power and have to wash wheels more often than have pads that create less dust but increase my braking distance. Screech, crunch, ouch!!!

There are several reasons why all German vehicles have softer pads than many manufacturers. "Autobahn" for one. :eek:

A good answer!

We are bombarded with advertisements and promotions for this and that car aftermarket product or farkle.

VW has always had a good record for car safety and I often take the view that if an alternative was better in some way, then VW would fit the alternative.

In other areas this is isn't always true where something aftermarket gives an improvement because the original design was poor. I'm sure VW will have tested their disc/rotors with different pad compositions from very hard to soft. Whilst there is nothing illegal about using any pad, they will have selected the composition that in their tests would give the best compromise for braking performance and rotor wear.

When I say 'poor design' , I had one of the first large car diesels which eat pads every 6 months and rotors lasted a couple of years. The manufacturer added wear indicators making the pads 'special' and expensive. Their mistake was to use their standard petrol engine solid non-ventilated rotor with hard pads and a wear indicator. Fortunately their 3.5l V8 petrol hubs with ventilated rotors were a direct swap and the problem was fixed (By me!).

My 4 year old 27K EOS has already had a comment about rotor wear, even though rotors are above the wear limit spec. My feeling is the EOS Tdi is a heavy car to stop and moving to non-oem harder pads will just wear out the rotors faster. Check the part and labor price for fitting front hubs before you decide to argue about this and that alternative brake pad performance.

Actually, softer pads are better at slower speeds and for the parking brake, but harder pads fade less during a long hard brake at high speeds. So the 'crunch' depends on the type of driver you are. If you tailgate above the speed limit or in triple digits on a motorway, then your potential for a big crunch is much greater and you can afford to write off brake hubs and use harder 'race spec.' pads. But the car behind will have standard pads and rear shunt you anyway!:)