What Makes Certain Brake Pads More Expenisve?

[PaRtZ]

Apart from popularity, why are some brake pads more expensive than others? Surely its the same plastic, just slightly different ratio's in the mixtures?

[Greetings]

It's not easy to find a really good compound. For instance, Cousts have been in the lead for many years now and there aren't very many pads on the market that can match their performance. Obviously if you find an incredibly good compound, you're going to charge more for it since people will be prepared to pay more. It's the same with everything else, why is a 221Pr frame 4x cheaper than a 221Ti?

[Echo-Scott]

Amount of material can play a big part. What backings they come with. All I can think of off the top of my mind.

[Luke Rainbird]

Some companies overcharge. I can think of a brand or two that have nice reasonable prices for pads (or just refils, if that's your bag...)

[Peperami]

It's not easy to find a really good compound. For instance, Cousts have been in the lead for many years now and there aren't very many pads on the market that can match their performance. Obviously if you find an incredibly good compound, you're going to charge more for it since people will be prepared to pay more. It's the same with everything else, why is a 221Pr frame 4x cheaper than a 221Ti?

Aye, its called an economy of scale.

An armani jacket costs about £10 more to make than a primark one (if that), yet costs £500 more... a ferrari doesnt cost £100k more to manufacture than a ford focus, yet thats how much more they charge, as people are prepared to pay that much.

An item is worth whatever people will pay...

[lankyri]

would it be like your buying a name or logo

its like on top gear quote me if wrong all the lil hatchbacks like the C2, swift, and pug all made in same factory but ones more expensive even though there basically the same car appart from the body kits as it were

if your looking for a decent cheap pad cant go wrong with heatsink or NECO although thats word of mouth about neco havnt tried so cant comment on them

[NileBrown™]

would it be like your buying a name or logo

its like on top gear quote me if wrong all the lil hatchbacks like the C2, swift, and pug all made in same factory but ones more expensive even though there basically the same car appart from the body kits as it were

It was the Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo, and the Peugeot 107 that are made in the same factory but just had different front ends and other minor details

But yeah your paying for the brand, as with anything.

[Tim/Trialsin USA]

Amount of material can play a big part. What backings they come with. All I can think of off the top of my mind.

There are any number of things that drive the price of brake pads.

1. Material. Some materials can be (reletively speaking), quite expensive.

2. Process. Injection molding is typically cheaper than poured. Many trials pads are poured because manufacturing facilities that do injection molding want to do number (tens of thousands at a time) that most trials companies don't want to commit to.

3. Hand made. I have assembled (and dissasembled!) alot of pads. When it comes down to it, cutting/shaving/shaping urethane is a tedious thankless task that..... sucks! If I were hand shaping each pad........ I would charge alot more actually!

4. R&D cost. It costs a fair ammount of money to keep experimenting with hundreds of compounds and develop and pay for the next project.

5. Some pads have none of the above to explain away the prices......... they are just making a shit load of profit!