oddball

Just FYI, might be useful for someone.

I went through an unexpected front end brake job and decided to see if there are actually decent rotors available.
In short, not really. You are subject to luck of the draw. Check all your parts.

I inspected four different suppliers:
CarQuest house brand (rebadged Raybestos)
O'Reilly house brand (rebadged Raybestos)
Pep Boys house brand (rebadged Centric)
Stoptech slotted (Centric 'performance' brand)

There's at least two rotor castings on the market. I think Raybestos and Centric are the actual suppliers. Both are cast in China. Pronto/Dura are actually Centric. (or vice versa?)

The Raybestos units have a stepped outer hub while the Centric are smooth.

Raybestos:
Thinner vanes
Hub surface that holds the studs is thinner - studs stick further out than on the Centric units
The CarQuest units passed my QA checks. The threads on the studs were poor, and stamped "W 752"
The O'Reilly unit had a narrow high spot ~0.0015", all the studs were stamped "V 752"


Centric:
Thicker vanes, all the studs were stamped "V 752"
One of the PepBoys units was good (~0.001" runout)
One of the PepBoys units must have had major core shift during casting - the vanes wavered up and down while spinnning and looking along the edge. That unit had 0.005" runout.
The Stoptech units had ~0.0015 runout. I don't have the best setup for checking slotted rotors, so this was a rough measurement.
Threads on the Stoptech units were good, didn't check the others.
Races in the Stoptech units were Chinese, it's safe to assume the others were as well.


All of the units had a good recess for removing the outer race. None had a recess for the inner race, so removing those was a chore. There were no obvious defects in any of the races, but I opted to install fresh National races and bearings anyway. Spacing of the vanes was the same on all. All were stamped with "5514" on the outer edge, along with the minimum thickness specs. There are significant differences in the casting shape around the inside of the hub - Centric has large pronounced ribs around the hub while Raybestos are very small - so there definitely are two different molds.
Pictures on Rock Auto or other sites are not accurate. I wouldn't use those to judge which facility made the rotor or quality of the casting.



Conclusion: It's all junk. Inspect before running.

jpc647

Good info. Thanks.

I've been buying Autozone Duralast Gold rotors across the board as of late, because they come with a 2 year warranty and are reasonable.

On a Daily, replacing the rotors just shy of every two years, and 50k ish miles seems excessive, but they take a beating during the winter.