Autozone Duralast Max brake pads

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My Fiesta ST's brake pads with almost 30k miles is making a light squeal when braking. It looks like the front and rears still have about half of the pad material left, but I might go ahead and change them anyways.

The OEM pads are very good, but also very high dusting. I would consider the OE pads, but the Motorcraft equivalent is reported not to be the exact same pads. Aftermarket performance pads are also pricey. The OE pads are very aggressive, and have worn a pretty noticeable groove into the rotor where they contact.

I'm currently looking at the Autozone Duralast Max metallic pads and Duralast rotors and the AAP equivalents. They're within $10 of each other. I've used the AAP pads and rotors on other cars and they work fine. I've never used the Autozone ones before. The thing with the AAP Platinum pads is that the last set I used were made in India. Probably not a big deal.

Anyone know if the Duralast Max metallics have a good initial bite? I don't mind brake dust if the pad is on the aggressive side like the OE, because quick stopping has saved my butt from the bad drivers around here more than once.
 
I use Duralast Gold pads on all my vehicles simply because they are ceramic. Most OE pads are semi-metallic and have brake dust. I never see brake dust with ceramic. Semi-matillac pads have more bite to them because of the metallic materials in the pads. If you are auto-crossing, semi-metallic may be better if you can deal with the brake dust. Also semi-metallics wear rotors faster.
 
I don't trust store-brand pads because you seldom know who made them and what kind of compound they are.

Rock Auto shows a few different Motorcraft pads for your Fiesta ST. One is labeled OE Design, while the other is called "high level service". The OED pads are more expensive, while the HLS pads cost much less. The HLS pads may be the ones reported to not be the same as the factory pads, whereas the OE Design pads could be.

If you want something more like OE, you may like the EBC Ultimax "Blackstuff" pads. They are a great daily driver pad. About $60/set. For a high performance ceramic, EBC has their Redstuff ceramic pads. About $100/set. Autoanything has the best prices on EBC pads and rotors, and they even offer price adjustments up to a year after purchase, so if they lower the price after you buy them, they will refund the difference
smile.gif
 
Ive been using Duralast gold pads on the front of my G35 for nearly 10 years. They are ceramic and dont dust.

Similar to your car the G35 on OE pads normally last 30k and will eat rotors. Knowing that i opted for lifetime warranty pads. I've used the warranty about every 2-3 years. No questions asked on the warranty. I normally grab rotors from rockauto. I ran two auto-x events and swapped pads after.

To me the bite is a little less but honestly i cant tell the difference between other g35's. I also run SS front lines and fresh fluid almost yearly.

Current model honda's have a very nice pedal and bite. I wish to have that.
 
I have Duralast Golds (Ceramic) on my truck and I don't like them.

There's no dust - but they groove the rotor s terribly and have a "weird" feel to how they bite.\

I'm going back to carbon graphite metallic ones
 
Originally Posted by slacktide_bitog
I don't trust store-brand pads because you seldom know who made them and what kind of compound they are.

Rock Auto shows a few different Motorcraft pads for your Fiesta ST. One is labeled OE Design, while the other is called "high level service". The OED pads are more expensive, while the HLS pads cost much less. The HLS pads may be the ones reported to not be the same as the factory pads, whereas the OE Design pads could be.

If you want something more like OE, you may like the EBC Ultimax "Blackstuff" pads. They are a great daily driver pad. About $60/set. For a high performance ceramic, EBC has their Redstuff ceramic pads. About $100/set. Autoanything has the best prices on EBC pads and rotors, and they even offer price adjustments up to a year after purchase, so if they lower the price after you buy them, they will refund the difference
smile.gif




Im with you about store brand aka house brand.. Im not saying they are bad anything.. I just like akebono or wagner thermo quet long as the wangner dont have that built in shim... My fav are stop tech and akebonos
 
I've come to prefer the 300. series from Centric. They're not the cleanest pads but they are quiet and have the feel I'm after which is good initial bite, and if you shop around they are reasonably priced.


They're currently on my 2003 and 2008. The wife doesn't really give a flip about what pads she has so she gets a longer wearing version from Centric, I just don't remember what those are at the moment.
 
For a small car I would not go metallic/semi-metallic unless there was a specific reason for it. Those tend to be dirtier and eat grooves into rotors. Hard ceramic will too. Akebono would be a good choice. Thermo quiets are great but are slightly harder. Harder tend to wear longer but can eat into rotors. Autozone ceramics tend to be very hard as do O'Reillys. There are plenty of good options out there. Rotors are just as important so make sure the spec with run out variation.
 
Very different application, but I used Duralast Max pads on my wife's Town & Country. They would have lasted significantly longer than what came on the van, but it seemed I always had some other failure causing me to change brakes.

Stopped well, no dust, Bought one set "per axle" and exchanged them when I needed to under Autozone's warranty.

Hopefully I won't be changing the brakes as often on the Pacifica, but I'll likely use them again on this car.
 
If I am not mistaken, Motorcraft BRF1494 should be the OE-design pads for this application. These should have the same performance characteristics as the pads that you are currently using.
 
Originally Posted by The Critic
If I am not mistaken, Motorcraft BRF1494 should be the OE-design pads for this application. These should have the same performance characteristics as the pads that you are currently using.


The BRF will be the OE pad as the long number will have 2001 in it as opposed to 2V001.
 
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