Can you make meatloaf or chocolate chip cookies exactly like your mother’s? probably not. Brake pads are one of the few components on a vehicle that can not be duplicated by just physical measurements and simple testing.

Carmakers do not say to replacement brake pad manufacturers, “Here is the recipe for our friction material for the 2006 models.” No, replacement brake pad manufacturers have to figure it out on their own and it is not easy or inexpensive.

But, here is the good news, as a vehicle gets older chances are the replacement brake pads will get better because the manufacturer will have more data in the form of real world miles.

Buying a quality brake pad is like buying prescription medicine. When you are buying a prescription drug you are not just paying the cost to manufacture, package and market the pill. The bulk of what you are paying for is research and development. The same is true for brake pads.

Brake pads require a great deal of testing and engineering because they are made for a specific vehicle. A quality brake pad manufacturer will spend a lot of time and money on a developing a brake pad application for your vehicle. This includes simulated and on-the-vehicle testing. This type of testing is people and equipment intensive.

Another cost of brake pad manufacturing is quality control. Reputable manufacturers will pull random samples from the production line and perform destructive testing. This costs money and time and may mean that a batch of pads could be rejected.

No, almost every vehicle model has a different shape of brake pad. The friction materials that are on the pad are different because almost every vehicle has different requirements and performance capabilities.