Wife's 99 Forester (EJ251) needs front brakes soon. First set of brakes I've put on a Soob (but done many many other sets of brakes).

 

In later model Hondas (07 Odyssey in particular) I have had very poor luck with noise and howling with anything but dealer pads and rotors. I put NAPA ultra premium rotors on the car and Raybestos Professional pads on it.

 

Are Subarus the same? Should I go see the dealer for replacement pads and rotors? Or will a good aftermarket like NAPA ultra premium or something like that work?

 

Any recommended aftermarket brands?

We have used all different kinds of pads and rotors at my shop. Currently we are using wearever rotors from advance auto parts and getting our brake pads from another supplier. We had good results with the adaptive one pads from napa until they raised the price on them. This was our standard setup for pretty much anything japanese we worked on. Only quit using napa rotors because we had too many with a shake right out of the box.

I have had good luck with Advance Auto Parts with their "house brand" ceramic pads. I can't remember the trade name they are sold under, but it will be pretty obvious if you shop for them on line at Advance. BTW, with on line coupons at Advance, you can take 25% to 40% off the price by using their coupons. It is really a good deal.

 

I have also bought rotors from Advance with no issues.

 

Brake work is easy on a Subie.

Wearever ceramics. They do pretty well my favorite pads are made by a company called pbr. They are a semi metallic and are called metal masters. They have good bite on the rotors but we dont use them because they can make a bit of dust.

I do napa. The napa medium price pads are the same as the oreilly 'premium' pads. and cost less, too. Gofor the medium price always. NAPA will have better professional quality of parts, and can get you stuff that the auto stores will show as "Listed, but not available" I guess between one place ot the other, go for the price with the least retail mark-up. All of your parts come from the same handful of mfg's, but just packaged and branded differently depending on their retail outlet.

Edited July 24, 201411 yr by MilesFox

But nobody's had any trouble with any particular brand making lots of noise causing trouble, as long as I don't buy cheap parts?

The only pads I've had trouble with were some cheap Wagner's I bought on clearance. they were terrifyingly poor and almost required 2 feet to stop the car. I pulled them when they were 1/3-1/2 worn out. don't recall which model pads.

 

On very rare occasions, like 4-8 times a year, during an easy stop, the StopTech S.P. pads on my WRX will emit a short squeak.

 

name brand or top-of-line store brand ceramics should do fine for you. I have Centric posiQuiets on our 03 Outback, will get them again.

 

SO MANY threads about brakes here (do a search) and hardly anyone has really bad experiences. Often, even cheaper pads are just short-lived or noisy, or dusty. If you stay with Ceramic, Semi-metallic or , maybe, para-aramid - from a reputable source - I can't imagine any 'howling' or other big issues.

Edited July 24, 201411 yr by 1 Lucky Texan

I work on lots of Honda odysseys and they will make noise like hebis describing when you really get down on the brakes .

its just a lot of vehicle to stop. We usually just tell people to deal with it or brake earlier. Even with factory pads I have heard it so its just the nature of the beast. With his outback being lighter I doubt he will have any issues.

Thanks very much folks, this was exactly the kind of info I needed

Just to chime in- I just did my 98 foz w pads from Subaru. They were like $68 or so and I paid wholesale cuz I work at an automotive type place. I didn't feel like running the risk of disappointment that happened a few times over on my Civic. Aftermarket pads and rotors gave me constant warpage/ vibration problems on that car, until I bought pads and rotors from Honda. Then all bueno. I considered some of the performance oriented pads from Hawk or EBC but figured my occasional spirited driving wouldn't warrant such hardware. Anyway, somewhat needless to say, the Subaru pads set in nicely, are quiet and feel good.