What’s the recent consensus on superstar brake pads, they had some trouble recently, are they back to quality now?
Will I die if I do?

They used to fall off the backing plates.
Now they don’t.
I think they’re all pretty much of a muchness now?

‘recently’ was actually a few years ago. They are fine now

they had some trouble recently

years and years ago they had a few with problems, for the most part I feel blown out of all proportion.

I’ve been using various ss pads for as long as they’ve been selling them , never had a problem.

Sintered for winter in the peak district, Kevlar all other times.

First outing for some SS kevlar pads in Hope X2 calipers was a damp FoD and they were noisy, honking like a clown car was coming across the car park. They have quietened down a lot but I may try sintered next time or better still go back to Hope pads

They stop me

Bit hit and miss to be honest especially kevlar.

Across 5 bikes I run a mix of sintered (yellow) and kevlar (red). The sintered are generally consistent and comparable to oem shimano pads. The backing plates are a tiny bit larger and I have had to file down an edge to get them to fit my road calipers.

The kevlar are good so long as you bed them in properly. If you don’t bed in they glaze over real easy and squeel like a pig. Also kevlar / epoxy pads are pretty porus so if anything and I mean anything gets near them that shouldn’t (like a misplaced squirt of gt45 / bike spray) it’s game over for them. Baking / bbq / blow torch methods don’t work.

When the kevlar work, they work really well. Nice initial bite and little noise. Don’t expect amazing stopping power though, it’s good but not much better than sintered (that are cheaper and last longer!)

So in summary I suggest go for the sintered!

cheap and they work

Only superstar stuff i regularly purchase

I only ever use Sintered as I live in the UK and not getting wet is not really an option now is it

I’ve been running the arctic sintered set.

Got them when they had an offer on a while back. Very happy with them. Work better than the Shimano pads they replaced.

Thanks. Fastest set of responses ever. I’ll give the a go again.

IIRC it was over 5 years ago, probably more sionce the backing plate issues.
Been using them for years with no issues. In fact I might stick the kevlars back in now things have dried out again.

I’ve had 2 sets come away from the backing material. Most recently last month, those pads were probably bought in a batch in 2015. To be fair, they were sintered pads that had been in over winter and it looked like it had corroded between the pad and the backing plate. Loads of folk use them with no bother and I’ve generally found them OK (2 sets failed out of probably 20 bought).

I’ve gone back to using Shimano pads, they aren’t that much more if you shop about and I’ve had less than great experiences with other “budget” pads (squealing, destroying rotors).

Used only SS pads for years now (since before the whole saga of the material/backing plate) and not had a single incident of the pad coming away from the backing plate. Pretty much just use kevlar now

The kevlars are my favourite pads and they happen to be cheap too, total win. Though, they do work better in my formulas than they did in my old XTs so maybe it’s a little brake dependent?

Also,

doncorleoni – Member

The kevlar are good so long as you bed them in properly. If you don’t bed in they glaze over real easy and squeel like a pig.

Absolutely this. But also, unlike most pads, they feel good and produce good power right out of the box- so it’s easy to be tempted not to bed them in fully. Most pads, you bed in til they feel right and you know it’s done.

They usually setup a stall at fort william, if your lucky enough to get there.

I think they are cheap for a reason. Kind of lump them in will all the cheap pad providers.

They wear at a crazy fast rate compared to OE stuff, so any saving is negated by the increased number of pad changes compared to decent pads.

4 sets of cheapy pads in 3 weeks in Whistler. Remaining 2 months on one set of OE sintered.

And they don’t howl when they get wet.

I’ve found the sintered to be better in every way to the oem finned pads I took out of my m785s.

In the past four years Ive used loads on…

Tektro Auriga
Elixir 5’s
Formula The Ones
Shimano Zee
Hope M4

Mostly sintered as they last longer in south wales. No issues whatsoever.