New Brake Pads made the difference...

Depending on the vehicle you install them on, low dust pads may not have the bite of the stock pads. As noted they will dust much less.

I installed akebono pads on my wifes 99 740il. As many of you know stock BMW brake pads have a lot of dust. Two days of driving and they are covered in thick dust.

The akebono pads took about 300 miles to break in. After that they seem to be fine, but they do not have the initial bite of the original pads. So some adjustments to our driving styles was needed.

After 3 weeks of driving the wheels still don't look dusty now. :clap:
 
I don't think there is anything wrong with having them on the street, there are just a whole host of disproved myths about "performance" pads and rotors. You pay lots of money and while they will outperform stock pads and rotors on the track (usually due to heating and hard breaking) they DO NOT outperform stock brakes on normal street driving.

http://www.scirocco.org/faq/brakes/pulpfriction/pfpage1.html

http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_brakesystems_upgradeselections.shtml

http://www.brembo.com/ENG/HighPerformance-Brakes/FAQs/ (even Brembo admits it on their website).

Here is the Brembo website quote: "Therefore, an increase in braking power will do nothing to stop the vehicle in a shorter distance."

So, for me I've always thought... do it if you like the look on your car, or if you take the car to the track, but don't do it if you suddenly think your new pads and rotors are going to make you have a shorter stopping distance under normal driving conditions.

Seems like a lot of money to pay for very little benefit.

I fully agree. IMO its more of a bling thing having drilled rotors on the street.

I used to track my old 01 Z06 on the road course. Most of us would just buy the $25 shipped each standard rotors from rockauto. Of course we used a track pad from PFC or carbotech with track tires from hoosier or kumho. A friend of mine bought the thicker drilled rotors for about $200 each. He said he could not tell the difference and they did not last 8x longer then the $25 rotors.
 
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