Since 1982, the Toyota Camry has been the perfect daily driver, grocery getter, roadtrip machine, and economy car.
I get it, the Toyota Camry is a smart buy! It’s no wonder why it’s been the best selling car year after year.
Let’s keep those good ideas rolling by upgrading to brake pads that increase stopping power, extend the life of your brakes, and make your Toyota Camry even more fun to drive.
In this guide, you’ll learn:
- The advantages of high quality brakes for a Toyota Camry
- Which brake pads work best for a Toyota Camry
- Features to consider when choosing brake pads
- And much more!
Below is a quick list of my favorite brake pads for a Toyota Camry. Keep scrolling to learn more of my top tips to choose and use the best brake pads for your Toyota Camry.
| Image | Product | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
My Top Pick  | My Top Pick | ACDelco Gold 17D1212CH
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| View on Amazon |
Best High-End  | Best High-End | Akebono ASP1212 Performance Ultra Premium
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| View on Amazon |
Best Budget Pick  | Best Budget Pick | KFE 1212-104 Ultra Quiet Advanced Premium
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| View on Amazon |
 | Bosch BE1212 Blue Disk
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| View on Amazon | |
 | Bosch BC1212 QuietCast Premium
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| View on Amazon |
What's in this Guide?
Our Overall Top #1 Pick: ACDelco Gold 17D1212CH
The ACDelco Gold ceramic brake pads are my top choice for a brake pad that’s as economical as your Toyota Camry.
Toyota Camry drivers look for efficiency: it’s affordable, reliable, and comfortable. To match the car, their brakes need to be just as efficient, and ACDelco’s pads are just that.
The ceramic friction formula is a big upgrade in stopping power without sacrificing comfortable drivability.
ACDelco has balanced this pad’s performance with slots and shims to absorb any vibration or noise, and they’ve also molded the pad into one solid piece to reduce premature wear. All that at a great price!
Top 5 Best Brake Pads for a Toyota Camry
In a hurry? Check out our top 5 picks below! Keep reading to learn more about these brake pads.
- ACDelco Gold 17D1212CH (Our Top Pick)
- Akebono ASP1212 Performance Ultra Premium (Best High-End)
- KFE 1212-104 Ultra Quiet Advanced Premium (Best Budget)
- Bosch BE1212 Blue Disk
- Bosch BC1212 QuietCast Premium
Why do you need a high quality brake pads for a Toyota Camry?
When you bought your Toyota Camry, you probably did research to make sure it was the right car for you. That’s why it makes sense to do that same research finding the best brake pads for it.
With the right brake upgrades, you’ll be spending less money, getting more miles between replacements, stopping quicker, and driving more comfortably!
You bought your Toyota Camry to drive it. Why not get the most out of those drives with high quality brake pads?
How to Pick the Best Brake Pads for a Toyota Camry?
The first step to picking the right brake pads for a Toyota Camry is knowing what to look for in a brake pad.
To be a good match for a Toyota Camry, your brakes pads will need to be:
- Effective. They gotta stop your car quickly!
- Comfortable. If a brake pad is noisy and shaky, it’s not good enough for the car you drive every single day.
- Long lasting. With the miles you rack up driving to-and-from work, school, and road trips, you’re too busy to replace brake pads every six months. You need something that will last you a good long time.
- Affordable. Your brakes are the most important feature on your car, so you should never cheap out on them. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be economical and find good brake pads that don’t cost an arm and a leg!
Now that we know what qualities we need in a brake pad, let’s take a look at the common features and construction of brake pads!
Friction: How Does It Affect Your Brake Pad?
Friction is an essential part of any brake pad. A pad’s friction is what stops your car by pinching the spinning rotor attached to your wheel, slowing it with friction.
Some brake pads don’t have enough friction, and they can’t stop the car very quickly, but because of this they actually last a very long time.
Other brake pads have a ton of friction. They’re able to stop a car on a dime, but doing that creates a ton of heat and wears out both the pad and the rotor prematurely.
A Toyota Camry is a lighter car, so it’s best suited with a pad that has lower friction, but still enough to stop the car quickly.
If you’re curious how much friction your current brake pads have, friction ratings are listed on the side of every brake pad. Just check your brake pads and compare with DOT friction codes.
Material: Which Material is Best for a Toyota Camry?
Brake pads can come in a few materials, all with different amounts of friction.
- Organic
- Semi-metallic
- Ceramic
To meet our requirements for a Toyota Camry, the best brake pad material is ceramic and here’s why.
Organic brake pads are incredibly cheap, but they don’t meet our needs for a Toyota Camry because they have very low friction. For a car driven as much as the Toyota Camry, you have to have confidence in the car, and if you can’t trust your brakes to stop when you need, then they’re not the right choice.
Semi-metallic pads have the most stopping power, boasting the highest friction. While you do want stopping power, semi-metallic pads actually have too much for your Toyota Camry.
All that friction creates a lot of heat which wears out your brakes prematurely.
They also have bad problems with noise and vibrations. All things we don’t want.
Ceramic pads are the perfect middle ground that a Toyota Camry needs. They have good friction for increased stopping power, and they’re a low heat option which gives them more longevity. Thanks to their unique formula, ceramic pads are also very comfortable and quiet.
Slots: What Do They Do?
Along with ceramic material, another excellent feature we should look for are slots.
Slots create a channel for heat to escape, which means longer brake life and fewer stops at the mechanic for your daily driver.
They also make your Camry more comfortable to drive by reducing brake pressure and vibration, which is the cause of noisy and shaky brakes.
For a car as dependable as the Toyota Camry, slots are a must-have feature on brake pads to make sure we’re getting the longest, most comfortable use of our brakes.
Why let your economical, money-saving choices stop here? Save yourself expensive mechanical bills by learning to replace your own brake pads with this tutorial!
Our Reviews of the Best Brake Pads for a Toyota Camry
The ACDelco brake pads have the perfect balanced features and performance that a Toyota Camry needs.
The high quality ceramic formula balances stopping power and longevity, without sacrificing any of our needs for a daily driver.
Drivability is improved by the use of slots, shims, and even a unique construction, all of which reduce noise and vibrations, making your Camry as comfy as can be!
| PROS (+) | CONS (-) |
| + High quality ceramic for balanced performance + Slots and shims reduce brake noise and vibration + One-piece mold extends pad life | – Stopping power is increased, but some options have more friction |
2. Akebono ASP1212 Performance Ultra Premium
If you demand a little extra performance from your brake pads, and don’t mind spending a little more coin, you can’t go wrong with Akebono.
They’re high friction ceramic increases stopping power by leaps and bounds, keeping you safe when road conditions get dicey.
The reason these pads are so good is not because of their performance, but because they don’t sacrifice comfort and drivability to achieve performance.
With slots and shims, as well as the high quality ceramic blend, Akebono pads are smooth, quiet, and an all around good balance for what a Toyota Camry needs.
| PROS (+) | CONS (-) |
| + High friction ceramic offers fantastic stopping power + Slots and shims make for quiet, comfortable driving + Made in USA | – High friction blend will wear the pad quicker |
3. KFE 1212-104 Ultra Quiet Advanced Premium
The KFE 1212-104 is hands down the best value brake pad you can get for your Toyota Camry.
Made from ceramic, the stopping power of these pads will be just as good as your original Camry brakes.
Outfitted with dual rubber shims to reduce vibration, and slots to extend longevity, KFE brake pads check all the boxes for your Toyota Camry.
With new clips and hardware included, I am blown away by how good these pads are for the staggeringly low price.
Keep in mind, other options are a better fit for the Toyota Camry, but from a value perspective, KFE pads are very good.
| PROS (+) | CONS (-) |
| + Outstanding value + Ceramic formula balances stopping power and drivability + Rubber shims and slots absorb vibration and reduce noise | – Stopping power will be good, but not much of an upgrade – Occasional problems with the included replacement clips |
Bosch is a brand with nearly as much pedigree as Toyota themselves.
Bosch has been leading the brake industry since 1936. If anyone knows how to make a brake pad that suits the world’s most popular car, it’s Bosch.
With a zero-copper formula that’s easy on the Earth, the ceramic blend has a good balance of stopping power, comfort, and affordability.
Using OEM specifications, these Bosch pads utilize slots and multilayer rubber shims to minimize all brake noises and vibrations.
Bosch even takes their eco-conservation a step farther by wrapping brake pads in a reusable shop rag, reducing cheap packaging garbage.
| PROS (+) | CONS (-) |
| + Ceramic with eco-friendly copper free formula + Slots and multilayer rubber shims reduce noise and vibration + Synthetic grease included | – Friction is decent, but not as high as other options – Hardware not included |
5. Bosch BC1212 QuietCast Premium
Another Bosch product, these pads are also made from a ceramic blend that offers the stopping power you need on the streets.
The ceramic blend includes a protective transfer layer.
So as you begin braking with these new pads, they’ll actually condition your brake rotors to last longer, and those savings go right in your pocket.
To bring the comfort and drivability that a Toyota Camry needs, Bosch equipped their QuietCast pads with an advanced multicore rubber shim and slots.
This means more comfort as you rack up miles on daily trips in your Toyota Camry, while having confidence that if something happened, you’d have the brakes needed to stop.
| PROS (+) | CONS (-) |
| + Ceramic formula balances stopping power with minimal brake dust and wear + Multilayer rubber shim reduces vibration and brake noises + Transfer layer conditions brake rotor to extend longevity | – Occasional issues with shim glue coming undone |
Our Top Pick: ACDelco Gold 17D1212CH
ACDelco’s Toyota Camry brake pads offer everything we need in an economical upgrade for our economy car.
The high quality ceramic material will have you driving more confidently knowing that you’ve got stopping power if you need it.
The slots and shims cut out road noise and vibrations from the brakes, and molding the entire pad as one piece really makes their whole product more rigid, which means better performance and longer pad life.
The many measures they took to improve driveability make your Camry’s braking more comfortable–almost like the pedal is an extension of your foot. Overall, ACDelco has made the best brake pad for a Toyota Camry.
Final Thoughts On The Best Brake Pads for a Toyota Camry
You’ve made it to the end! Congratulations, you are now an expert on all things Toyota Camry brake pads.
Now that you know everything to look for in your brake pads, you’re sure to make a good choice by using that forward-thinking, smart shopper brain that got you driving a Toyota Camry in the first place.
The pads listed above really are all the best options on the market, and no matter which choice you make, you’re gonna end up with a fine product that is well suited for your Toyota Camry.
