I am coming up ready for some new rear pads and wondered if anyone had any experience of EBC...
Yes, I have Martin, and it is not just marketing hype. They really are better. Yes they are slightly more expensive, but so far the volumes are lower so that is to be expected. If ever the manufacturers get around to fitting them, the prices could drop.
They do the Greenstuff version for the fronts but only Redstuff or Yellowstuff for the rear. The Yellow ones are getting toward race spec so not for me anyway.
In which case you should only fit the Greenstuff to the front and normal pads on the rear, if you fit these Kelvar pads. You must not use them on the rear only or higher rated ones on the rear than the front.
I don't have an issue with how well my Espace decelerates or stops under braking or with brake fade, the only reason I am looking at EBC is to reduce the level of brake dust...
They will certainly help with this. I have them on my Espace Quadra (as well as my Murena) and both keep their wheels cleaner than with non-asbestos pads. I am lucky since Greenstuff are available for front and rear of my Quadra. And the braking is really strong on the Quadra.
Regarding what Anders has written, the coating now supplied on the latest EBC pads is bedding in compound. The reason for this (and other pads often have it too) is that non-asbestos pads tend to score discs, and so this helps to clean the discs for the new pads. Therefore, as with ALL new brake pads of any type, you must bed them in carefully over a short period before they will produce full braking effort. Previously without a bedding in layer you might need to cover 200 miles before the pads would give full braking effort.
If you fit new discs, new pads will bed in very quickly as the surface is flat, and this bedding in compound is not really needed.
The reason you only have quite small pads at the rear compared to the front, is that the front does almost all the work on front wheel drive cars (possibly as much as 85% at times) so they need to be much bigger to cope with the heat and wear.
One reason I believe (being cynical as I am!) that manufacturers do not fit these Kevlar pads, is that they like the fact that you need new discs for ever two sets of pads as non-asbestos pads wear the discs badly. Kevlar ones, like the old asbestos pads, do not. So manufacturers can sell you new expensive discs on your expensive cars!
Roy