Hello, all. I've had my '04 XJ8 for three weeks now. Took it on a 500 mile road trip this weekend and am totally wow'd by the performance, especially the pick-up when passing a car and we're already going ~75 MPH!! And I still had a trip average of 26.2 mpg.

Anyway, when I returned, I noticed lots of brake dust on the panel behind the rear wheels. It's not oily, so I'm assuming it's normal dust, but it seemed like a lot.

Anyway, I'd like to replace the (I assume) OEM semi-metallics with ceramics, but I did find one site which warns against replacing semi-metals with ceramics. Yet, I find ceramics for 2004 XJ8 front wheels, but not back.

Could someone here give me the straight "skinny" on this? Thanks, in advance.

Mitch

Factory pads create a lot dust. It's mostly the binding compound (mostly resin) that creates dust. Ceramic pads because they typically are of higher quality and contain less metal particles don't dust as much as organic pads. You can get high quality metallic pads that produce little also.

Disc Italia makes a very high quality pad in both a ceramic and kevlar titanium compound for front and rear brakes for the X350. You will get better bite, longer wear and slightly more dust from the kevlar titanium compound than the ceramics. For my money I would go with with the kevlar titanium compound. I have been running them in my '04 XJR and I am happy with them. You will probably notice a slight drop off in braking performance if you switch to ceraminc pads.

The only high compression molded brake pads I know of which are the highest quality type of construction for the street are made by Performance Friction and Disc Italia. Unfortunately PF doesn't make pads for our cars last time I checked. They do make pads for the X308 but not the X350's.

Been using Akebono pads and they have virtually no brake dust. Not sure what their compound is, but braking is pretty good.

I just replaced the discs and pads on my XJ8 and used the Akebono pads. Very pleased with them so far.

Thanks, higeorge (and mosesbotbol),

I'm pretty set on switching to Akebonos and some slotted rotors TBD.

Just for reference if you are interested:

Rock Auto - brake pads
Akebono EUR1062 - $85.79/set
Akebono EUR806 - $66.79/set

R1 Concepts - rotors
POEF06471 - 120.61077 Premium front rotors - $174.90/set
POEF06471 - 120.61062 Premium rear rotors - $74.36/set
(You can have these rotors drilled, cross drilled or both if you want. I got the smooth surface rotors.)

Thanks! Those were the rotors and pads I was planning to get.

I tried looking from Rock Auto's website but can't find those? Did you call or?

Thanks!

Update: Called Rock Auto and they don't have Akebono pads for XJ8 anymore (or at least at the moment)...

Where to get those or other good (ceramic or not) pads for XJ8?

My latest research came up with this info:

XJ8
Front - EUR938, $105.99 (Rockauto)
Rear - EUR806, $70.79 (Rockauto)

Enter the part numbers in the search and they will come up.

Thanks!