Appreciate the input; just to clarify, SWMBO diesnt drive fast on the school run, or recklessly at anytime.

She was an advanced motorbike instructor, and instructed on track days;

An R6 was her weapon of choice as she weighed circa 7.5st and is 5'1" so an R1 was out of the question.

Me? Retired police sergeant, Advanced grade 1, and I'm the bloke that probably had to clean up the mess when people's ability ran out at roughly the same time as their tyres gave up grip on the tarmac....

And thanks again, appreciate any advice!

Coming from an Impreza to the Fabia was a shock for me. Regarding the brakes, they're as good as those on the majority of cars. They'll stop you in a crisis, damn quickly.

For more sporty usage though, they fade after 2-3 moderate to hard applications. Not used sports pads on the fabia so I don't know how that changes things. Would suggest that best bang for buck would be 312s and then sports pads if they are not enough.

Horses for courses in some ways.... I s'pose trying different pads doesn't require insurance notification and can be done with fewer spanners etc.... Prices of sports pads gets me sucking my teeth though.

Oh yeah, one other thing I found was on the standard suspension, the car seemed to nosedive or roll forward. Giving the impression of great braking... It's not true, you just end up at the corner/stop going faster than you thought and hitting the brakes harder rather than moderating the pressure that the car remains composed.

J.

What do people recommended in between OEM & the ferrodo?

Appreciate the input; just to clarify, SWMBO diesnt drive fast on the school run, or recklessly at anytime.

She was an advanced motorbike instructor, and instructed on track days;

An R6 was her weapon of choice as she weighed circa 7.5st and is 5'1" so an R1 was out of the question.

Me? Retired police sergeant, Advanced grade 1, and I'm the bloke that probably had to clean up the mess when people's ability ran out at roughly the same time as their tyres gave up grip on the tarmac....

And thanks again, appreciate any advice!

Ironically the driver I had in mind was an advanced police driving instructor, the way he could read the road and talk you through his decision making process in real time was a real eye opener, that's when I first understood that passing your test was the bare minimum to be on the road and just the beginning.

I've not been to a track day in a long time, a family friend got the nod to race for a BSS team was involved in a minor (but fatal) accident in a club race while riding an R6, the kind you get up and walk away from unless another rider hits you as you're doing so. As you'll probably have found from your own experiences they change your perspective on cars and bikes not to mention how you choose to use them.

What do people recommended in between OEM & the ferrodo?

It depends on what you use the car for/how you drive. OEM is Bosch/Padgid depending on the car and fine for the vast majority of people, just not ideal for track use or fast repeated heavy braking. Ferodo are what I run on the front of my bike (OE on rear), but if you're referring to DS2500's then again they aren't road legal, Matt is probably right about the compound changing since I used them but I found them amazing when hot but not great from cold.

This brings up the Reg90 issue (again) and its interpretation

MOT brake testing takes no account of brake materials fitted to the cars, only that they work sufficiently well, which is the important aspect obviously.

Likewise, in my experience, accident investigation looks at the thickness of the pads/discs and wether they work efficiently. I used to wonder what would happen if the car was found to have pads and discs that were MORE efficient than the +/-15% rule of Reg90....

Which is exactly what the DS2500 are. EU bull**** at its best!