[KNS]

The first thing I did when I bought my BMW daily 13 years ago was get rid of the messy factory pads and replaced them with low-dust pads. I got 107,000 miles off the front pads and discs and 205,000 miles off the rear pads (rear discs still had plenty of thickness so didn’t replace). I even had one or two track days on those (low dust pads suck for track work, needles to say...). Low dust pads don’t have the same initial bite as the factory pads.

I just go easy on the brakes. I don’t do long, light applications which heat up your brakes and I don’t stab the brakes either. If I’m coming up on a light up ahead I touch the breaks briefly to start slowing the car down and let momentum bleed off (as Tervuren states above), Then as I get closer to the light I just brake normally. This method has gotten me long pad life on all the cars I’ve owned no matter the pad material.