Regarding the whole braking issue: Car and Driver didn't crash because the car they had was abused. If that was the case, half of the cars they track would've been crashed too. Nissan issued a statement saying that the Akebonos come equipped with a standard street brake pad that does an adequate job of stopping the car with minimal amounts of brake dust - purely a consumer influenced decision. Stopping distances of 100 ft were recorded by numerous publishers, and that's actually superb - Porsche levels right there. Nissan added that if buyers wanted a high-temp fade-resistant pad they could spend $600 on the optional Nismo pads. Then people on the iterwabz were like "why didn't they just include that pad stock?" Because, they dust like all sorts of hell.
I have them on my car (they came with it, I didn't order them). When you need to: they'll stop the car like you're hitting a brick wall. But my God, my wheels turn black after 20 miles of driving or one firm stop! I can't imagine owners liking that very much, at all. My 350Z kept its wheels clean for as long as a week on the OEM pads.
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