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My 2006 9-3SC came with ceramics in the front and "conventional", semi-metallic I presume, in the rear. I believe Saab started doing this on the 2006's, at least on the 2.0T's (previously called linears and arcs). Whether they made any other changes to the braking system, such as varying the front/rear balance, I do not know.
My car has just under 30,000 miles now, and the front pads still look like new. The front wheels also stay exceptionally clean with the ceramics. The rear pads were shot at 22,000 miles. I measured the rear rotors and determined they should be OK for one more set of pads, so I replaced the rears with EBC Greenstuffs. With 8,000 miles on the new rear pads, I would say the Greenstuffs are very close to the OEM rear pads as far as wear and dust. The rear wheels start to turn black within a couple of days of being washed, as they always have.
My theory is that when Saab switched to ceramics in the front, that forced the rear pads to wear much faster. The ceramics are less "sticky", in other words, under light braking they really don't bite and the rears end up doing more of the work.
I plan to switch to ceramics in the rear, along with replacing the rotors when the rears are worn again. I speculate that by doing this the front/rear wear will be more even. I also suspect more pedal pressure will be required, at least under light braking. I would like to hear from someone else that is running ceramics all around to hear what they have to say.
BTW, I consider myself very easy on brakes; the car is a 5-M/T, so even w/o downshifting, there is more engine braking going on. I drive in such a manner that I rarely touch the brakes, so I was quite shocked to find the rear pads were worn w/i a 1/16" of the metal after only 22k.
As far as your car goes, is the first time you've had to service your brakes? If so, and you really don't care about the brake dust, you might want to stay with pads that are similar to what it came with as being able to go 49K between brakes services is certainly a plus. I do not know if the Akebono's you are referring to are the same as what Saab sells or not. For that matter, does Saab even use/sell the pads that came with your car, or have they switched to the ceramics (on the front) that the later models came with?
posted by 71.232.19...
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