Hey Dan, first a comment & then a question that might help throw some light onto your brake pad wear... :shocked:
Comment: I notice from your profile that both your RS & your F3 have been SE's.... (great choice, btw!)
Now for the (double bunger?) question: When you first rode your RS, did you tend to do more of your 'down shifting' yourself as & when you wanted (ie sorta using the semi-auto trans like a clutchless manual) but now with the F3 do you tend to let the Spyder do somewhat more of the downshifting as & when IT decides to?? :dontknow:
Treating the SE more like the auto trans in your car (albeit only with auto down-shifting) may well be putting a lot of 'extra' wearing load on your brake pads; whereas if you were simply using the SE as a clutchless manual & using your gears more than your brakes, then it should wear the brakes somewhat less & give you more/quicker response if needed - especially if you make a practice of stepping sequentially down thru each of the gears in order to slow down some in each gear & thereby always being in the gear appropriate to your revs & your (reducing) road speed, instead of leaving it in a higher gear & primarily using & relying on your brakes alone to slow down before letting the Spyder trans eventually drop into whichever lower gear it decides it needs when next you ask for power/accel....
Soo, if you basically answered YES to that compound question a bit above &/or that's pretty much the approach you take to your ryding & gear changing; then if you want to minimise your brake pad wear somewhat, I guess you might want look at using the gears/flappy paddles a bit more often than you do now & certainly use them more often than you use the brakes to slow atm!?! :thumbup: