'06 Sedan needs ft brakes at 22K miles!!!

[froggy81500]

After finally having enough of the front end shaking and thumping while braking (especially on hills) I took the car in for regular maintenance and to check the front brakes. Got an estimate of about $350!! I asked if the fronts were still under warranty, to which he said no that its only 12K/12 months. I searched thru the warranty book yesterday and couldn't find any reference to that at all.

Anyway, I told him to hold off on the brakes. I can do them myself a hell of a lot cheaper than that and disc brakes are easy anyway. I was looking around on ebay for some nice drilled and/or slotted rotors and came across this listing in Canada for some drilled rotors. They are $65 which seems pretty cheap to me and wondered if anyone had any experience or thoughts on this.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...165630114&rd=1

Figure the weather here in Upstate NY is getting ready to turn fall so I'd like to wrap this job up sooner than later.

[migs1974]

i'd stay away from drilled rotors. go for slotted/vented. never tried those from ebay. you can get Powerslot Rotors and Hawk HPS pads (which are an awesome upgrade) for $207 shipped at performancepeddler.com. Enter the code "ebayrocks" for a discount to bring the total to $207. i ordered mine from there.

[davidsky]

I bet when you actually look at the pads they'll hardly be worn at all

[froggy81500]

I figure the pads are fine, because mostly all of my driving highway. I think the rotors got toasted from some of the hills I take giong back and forth to my son's house. My brother's '07 does the same thing mine is doing and he takes one of the same hills. The dealer wants about $300+ to do the fronts. Hell, I can get a pair of cheapy autozone rotors for $50 and splurge on a sixer of beer and be done with it in an hour. Sounds like a better deal to me. The rotors must be really off because he didn't even mention trying to turn them, which probably would have been a waste of time and money anyway.

[strangebrew]

My car had 20000 km (12000 miles) on it and the dealership redid my rotors. I have an 06 coupe. He said that GM changed their warranty on brakes to 60000 km as long as it is not the drivers fault. If you need new pads as well, then there is no warranty, but if it is just shi tty rotors, they should either machine them (which won't last long) or redo them. This is what was explained to me.

[froggy81500]

Well, good news and bad news. The good news is that I found out tonight just how easy these are to take apart. I mean I've done discs plenty of times before. My last car had 4 wheel disc and did all 4 corners in about 2 hours, but damn these ion ones are easy to take apart. I bet my 10 year old son could do them. Also good news is the pads have plenty left on them and they look good. the passenger rotor looks fine and spins true. I took the car out of gear and turned the rotor and saw very little in and out movement against the pads, so little movement that I didn't even hear them scrape the pads. The driver's side however is another story. Not only can I see and hear the warpage when I turned it, but the back side has a line about in the middle of the friction surface all the way around and one small spot that looks bare. Not bare like a rotor should look, like bare like the cast iron underneath. I'm guessing this is my warp spot and causing all the grief.

And the bad news. Autozone online shows the rotors for $23 apiece. Stopped at the local store and they only have one in stock. WTF. So I stop across the street at Advance Auto even though they are double the price, not only not in stock but special order. There is a Napa in town but I doubt they have them when the other places don't and besides that, Napa is on Main Street and tomorrow is the village's bicentennial parade so it'll be insane to even get over there. So I bit the bullet and ordered a pair of Raybestos rotors on Rockauto. Not sure when they'll get here but I'm a little disappointed because I had a discount code and the box for discounts is gone from their site.

[Diesel_Clatter]

Originally Posted by froggy81500

Not sure when they'll get here but I'm a little disappointed because I had a discount code and the box for discounts is gone from their site.

I recently made a few orders from RockAuto and got the discount by entering the code in the box after "How did you hear about us...."

[froggy81500]

Originally Posted by Diesel_Clatter

I recently made a few orders from RockAuto and got the discount by entering the code in the box after "How did you hear about us...."

Yeah I know. I did a search for rockauto discount code and read that too. Ah well, 5% would have saved me maybe $3 or so.

[nababbo]

I think the Autozone duralast are excellent rotors (I had them on my Taurus and never warped, always gave me excellent performance). I also liked Brembo OEM rotors, but they are more expensive. definitely do not go with drilled or high performance. You are just wasting your $ IMHO.
Use this code in the "how did you hear about us" at RockAuto: 776599690917

[AuraDrvr89]

I think part of the problem is that GM just can't make rotors that last a decent amount of time without pulsation.

Pulsating rotors suck.

[SaturnManiac]

I would stay away from the cheap AutoZone rotors, especially if your stock rotors are already warped from those hills and the way you drive. The AutoZone (RicerZone) cheapies will be made cheaper than the stock ones.

Order online from partsamerica.com, its much cheaper...that's where I get alot of my parts from. It's Advance Auto online, and Advance Auto tends to sell better quality parts than AutoZone. If you have a CarQuest in your area, those aren't a bad place to get brakes/rotors for a Saturn either. Sometimes they sell for the same price as ordering online from partsamerica.

I personally say to stay away from cheap Chinese rotors as I have seen them warp and get torn up pretty bad. When it comes to brakes, something that could possibly save my life (or someone elses), I prefer to spend a little more money to be on the safe-side.

But as for brakes, do it yourself, it's not very hard at all. I've done drum brakes, and those aren't even that bad.

[froggy81500]

Originally Posted by SaturnManiac

I would stay away from the cheap AutoZone rotors, especially if your stock rotors are already warped from those hills and the way you drive. The AutoZone (RicerZone) cheapies will be made cheaper than the stock ones.

Order online from partsamerica.com, its much cheaper...that's where I get alot of my parts from. It's Advance Auto online, and Advance Auto tends to sell better quality parts than AutoZone. If you have a CarQuest in your area, those aren't a bad place to get brakes/rotors for a Saturn either. Sometimes they sell for the same price as ordering online from partsamerica.

I personally say to stay away from cheap Chinese rotors as I have seen them warp and get torn up pretty bad. When it comes to brakes, something that could possibly save my life (or someone elses), I prefer to spend a little more money to be on the safe-side.

But as for brakes, do it yourself, it's not very hard at all. I've done drum brakes, and those aren't even that bad.

Yeah, discs are easy as hell, that's why I kinda balked at the price the service guy gave me yesterday. I knew I could do them myself for a 1/3 the price. Went with Rabestos off Rockauto. I bought Raybestos last year when I did my Intrepid. No problems with them, except their pads I used in the front were squeaky even when using stop squeal. I'm going to keep the OEM pads on there because they still look good and after looking over the rotors last night I don't see why I couldn't reuse the pads.

Most of my driving is flat highway, just on weekends when I go back and forth to my son's house is when I hit the big hills. I've been trying to be a little more careful on the brakes coming down those hills and downshifting more when I didn't used to. Matter of fact, I probably will continue to do that even after putting on new rotors to hopefully extend the life of them. With the highway driving I do, its not uncommon for me to go 40K+ on a set of brakes, they just don't get a lot of use, which is fine by me.

Its been awhile since I've touched a set of drum brakes though. I've been meaning to pull a drum and get a look at these and see what is what. Preferably, I'd rather have 4 wheel disc for both better braking and easy to work on. But I am capable of working on drums, might take me a little longer since its been awhile. Anyone got any pics of the rear brakes? I've been curious on how the adjusters and the mechanism for it is set up. Traditionally drums got adjusted when backing up, that used to be a good way to adjust them out after having the drums off, not sure about these though.