Mintex M1144 Pad Review

[Rusty_McRusty]

A brief review:-

I recently fitted Mintex M1144 pads to the front of my IS as an upgrade over the Textar / OE items that I had previously. I have started to use the car for occasional track days and these were recommended as a suitable pad for my usage.

Following previous use of the M1144 pads, I expected them to be a little dull from cold but on the road they felt very sharp and after a brief bedding in proceedure, they were excellent, sharper than the textars and better still with some heat in them. For the same price as OE pads, they really are good.

On track the same applied, building the braking up slowly, so as to impart heat in a controlled manner, they had good bite and could be modulated well with the feeling that there was braking in reserve when slowing at a pace more akin to a fast road drive.

After a couple of warm-up / track learning sessions, I started to lean on them a bit more, that's when they started to become less brilliant. Fade wasn't the issue, as it had been with the OE Textars, it was more that the brakes began to get noisy and so I backed off to the point where this stopped. This was maybe 75% of the braking that I would have wanted on track.

As I wasn't sure what was going on, I contacted Mintex to enquire whether this behaviour was to be expected. The unfortunate answer was that yes, this was how the M1144 behaved when used as a track pad on a car that was not classed as 'lightweight'. This obviously wasn't what I wanted to hear, having just spent my hard-earned on them but you have to take these things on the chin and move on, shame.

So, overal, an excellent road pad, you'll never get them hot enough on the road to experience the heat problems but perhaps best left off any serious track car, spend a bit more on DS2500s or similar.

After that, if anyone wants some just-bedded-in M1144s then please get in touch.