I was told to buy ceramic or carbon break pads for my 04 D, can anyone tell me if this is the best choice? Thanks

 

Well this is going to be a case of opinion. I put the ceramic pads on my 02 ram quad cab and my 05 caravan, neither of which I have now. The ceramics have some pros and cons. My experiance led me to never use them again. Yeah they last longer and do not produce as much wheel dust but they became noisey after a while, I am guessing that this was due to the harder pad. When breaking you could hear the pad and the rotor noise, no grinding just the sound of them rubbing against each other. I have also been told that they are harder on your rotors and will cause the rotor to thin more than regular pads. I do not know if there is any truth to that or not, did not keep the vehicles long enough to find out. Again just my opinion.

 

I replaced mine because the original pads produced too much dust. Rust colored wheels all the time.
I replaced them with Akebono Pro-Act ceramic pads from The Tire Rack.
I love them. The dust is dramatically reduced and what little there is doesn't rust since there is no metal, so you can't see the small amount of dust on the wheels. I haven't noticed any noise when brakes are applied. The noise that bbun mentioned might have something to do with the brand of ceramic pad used or perhaps I don't have enough miles on mine (5000).
Here's a link:

http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/resul...6&autoModClar=

Flea