Do all four wheel rotors and pads (8) have to be the same make and model.? I just had the rear rotors and pads done by Jag dealer (Oem) and am looking at a different rotor for the front and maybe ceramic pads instead. My gut says no but my brain says why not.

 

Chuck, you need to watch how different that they become. You can run say cross drilled/slotted rotors on the front and standard (solid) rotors on the back and use the same pads, you are fine. You can run say solid rotors front and rear and go with a slightly more grippy pad and be fine. But, what you need to watch out for is improving one end of the car more than the other as you will shift a majority of the braking ability to those pads and what you will experience is one set of pads will wear out in a heartbeat and the others will last forever.

Is it better to keep the same relative setup all the way around. Of course. But, you do have some flexibility with what you put on the front and rear. Just don't get too wild with the differences.

 

I will disagree with my colleague Thermo just this once. Changing front/rear brake balance is not a good thing to do, ABS or not.

 

I put EBC red on the front and Akebono on the back of my 2011 XF over 2 years go. Rotors are all original.

I just bought another 2011 XF with stock all the way around.

The EBC/Akebono stop much smoother and I have never had any issue under hard braking. The nice part is lower brake dust and rotor wear. OEM pads stink for rotor wear and dust.

 

It does depend on the pad material.

I wouldn't try to mix "ceramic" pads with other types (not to be confused with "ceramic" brakes which are a whole different ball game, mucho expensive and total overkill on any road car whatever the marketing guys might say).

Rotors are pretty much rotors whatever the latest urban myth might recommend.

It is very, very doubtful that drilling or slotting rotors makes any difference to brake performance on the street. The quality issues with brake rotors have very little to do with actual braking performance and more to do with cracking or warping, integrity of the cooling vanes and uniformity of the casting surfaces especially as the rotor wears out(brake rotors are commonly cast iron I believe). The actual braking surface is pretty much the same regardless of who makes them quality issues aside. If you're lucky a set of no name generic rotors will work great but if you are not lucky it will end badly. I specifically request first quality rotors when my brakes are relined (and remember Jaguar does not make the braking systems on their cars, and I don't think any car manufacturer does, so even OEM are in reality "aftermarket").

Also, remember that Jaguar does an excellent job designing and spec'ing their brakes so it is unlikely an improvement can be made.

Tires stop the car, brakes slow the wheels. The main sorcery employed in brake specification is pad material and you should try very hard to make sure the pads you fit front and rear are compatible with each other or you will degrade performance.

Up to 80% of braking effectiveness comes from the front brakes and it is common to upgrade front brakes without changing anything on the rears, even Jaguar does this as you can tell by checking the specs on various XF models and also the new F Type which is offered with three brake specifications (pure marketing hype that, since vehicle weight pretty much governs effective brake size).