I know Carbontech (and most producers of race brake pads) dont recommend using their pads on rotors that have been used with regular street pads. However, this would have me buying $250 worth of brake pads to run on the street with my all-season tires or swapping rotors with the pads which I'd really rather not do if I could get out of it. Is this actually something that matters? Or can I get away with swapping between cheap pads and race pads?

 

Yes it matters, no you can't. The answer depends on which pads you run as some pads (hawk for example) can swap back and forth. Just man up and run carbotech's or glock's on the street and deal with the squealing. Also... this question has been asked about 1,000,001 times before (you are the 1 at the end). Use the search next time.

 

I run PFC 11's on the track and OEM pads for street using the same rotors with no problems. Carbotechs can be sensative to the bed in process. I tried them once on fresh cut rotors. They were OK for one track day (no my favorite pad feel). I swapped to OEM pads for between. Next time I was on the Carbo's they sucked. I get 2 or 3 track day weekends from a set of PFC 11's