It can be confusing when you are looking at an advertisement, side of a brake pad box or claim a chain of shops about brakes. Taken at face value, you would think that there would be no more brake noise, precise stopping distances and that brake pads last forever. As a technician or driver, you know this is not true.

The reason why some claims are broad and ambiguous is it leaves the company and customer to apply their own context. An ad which claims “Our brake pad is better” could be just saying it’s an improvement over using no pads at all. Reduced stopping is one of the misunderstood and misused claims in the business. Stopping distance claims are almost never followed up by “compared to what?” Also, it is almost never stated how the tests were performed or if it was on more than one application.

Just about every pad on the market makes this claim. Since the word “quiet” means different things to different people, it is difficult to dispute this claim. This is another claim that should be followed up by the question, “compared to what?”