Hi Lee... If you're doing primarily residential cut pile carpets I'd go with the Gladiator Pads if you clean more commercial &/or berber I'd get the Snake Skins. I have cleaned cut pile with both and admittedly the Gladiators ran smoother on cut pile. On Commercial it seems the snake skins clean faster as they're more aggressive. Both are avaialble at EncapStore.com.
Tuway also has some nice pads: Tuway Thin Ones (probably the most durable), Speed Trek and Bullseye bonnets are also nice.
Personally, I keep 1-2 thinones per towel bucket and roughly a 80/20 mix of SnakeSkins and Gladiators. That said, I mainly clean commercial carpet. If the carpet is gross, use a Tuway Thinone first and then move to the more absorbant pads in order to get maximum usage out of them.
As far as the wear rate I can say that the Gladiators do out last the Snake Skins slightly but the SnakeSkins are less expensive and are considerably more aggressive. That said both hold up well and are considerably more durable than the old Combo Pads and thin cotton pads.
At any rate, if your pads are shredding it makes me wonder what pad driver you have on your machine...
See you at Mikefest!!!!
