I just bought HP Plus pads for all four corners. They are LOUD. I don't mean squeaky or irritating - I can tolerate that - I mean loud. Dump truck loud. Wake the neighbors loud. I've been buying performance brake pads for a lot of years now, and I've never experienced anything like it.

Example - I've got the OE stereo in the car. For certain stations, at highway speed, I turn it up to "20" to hear it over ambient noise. If we go back to city speeds and I apply the brakes, the howling Hawks *completely* drown out the stereo. People literally point and stare.

All I did was swap pads. I left the OEM shims on the original pads, and put the Hawks in "naked" - this may or may not be causing the problem. This weekend I'll try putting those back on, along with some of that disc brake silencer goop.

I will say this for them - they stop fine cold, and they stop really well once they've got some heat in them. Much grabbier than the stock pads. Haven't had them long enough to comment on the dusting, but over on rr-ax.com where I asked about the noise first, people pretty much universally said they dust a lot.

Oh, and the Channellock tip is a good one, I just started doing that myself. A whole lot less cumbersome than the C Clamp plus an old pad technique.