Carquest Premium Gold Brake Pads: With Hardware, Ceramic, Long Life and Quiet - Rear

I bought gold brake pads. When i picked up my purchase at the store, the box was ripped, but I didn't mind, i thought, because I eye-balled the new pads. I did NOT eye-ball them well enough! When I went to install them, they were obviously way too big, Turns out somehow, the pads inside the box did not match the number outside the box. And - only 3 of the 4 hardware was included. The good news: the manager at the store exchanged them for PLATINUM pads. (They did not have any gold in stock.) The moral - check your purchase BEFORE you leave the store.

I bought these to replace the original factory brakes for my 2010 Nissan Altima. I bought the car new and have 69,500 miles on it. I drive a lot of miles, but am not a hard braker. The original pads that came with the Nissan were only about halfway worn when I replaced them at 52,000 miles with these Wearever Gold Premium Ceramic brake pads for my rear brakes. These brakes only lasted 16,500 miles! The pads wore on the outside much faster than the insides, but one oddity I noticed on the inner pads that still had some material left on them was this: THEY HAD CHUNKS THAT WERE FALLING APART! These were obviously made with poor construction since pads should NOT fall apart in chunks. I've attached some pictures, though my camera phone does not yeild the best results for you see see the depth of the chunks that came off of the brakes, but they ARE there.