They used new bolts when they rebuilt the calipers. They all do. You get new pistons, seals, hardware, bolts, and bleeders. Would you want them to reuse old stuff? :shakes head:

I am sure they work fine, but that color job seems really ugly

The genuine ones say akebonos printed on the back. Same goes for the Infinity's. Mine has the rubber pieces around the bleeder bolts. Also if you havent noticed there are two small holes covered with the excess paint on the two front ones but whatever floats your boat brotha. let us know how they hold

Inside of the akebonos are coated on the bore. It looks like hard black anodize to me. I wonder of the knockoffs have the same. That could easily affect impact their lifetime.

One more thing I noticed... 15th picture, looks like something oozed out of the seam when they put the halves together. Like they used RTV when assembling them. Might be seeing it wrong but that would be some concern.

Can you give me more information about these holes? I'm at work so I can't pull my calipers out, but I don't remember anything like this. I'm confident that my calipers are OEM.

that surface should be flat, unless they sanded it down on the knockoffs but on the first couple pictures you can see the holes

http://i68.tinypic.com/3161zs6.jpg

So you're saying that he has holes which should not be there?

I thought you were saying that he's missing holes that should be there.

correct. see the pic above

I actually went to the seller's page, and they list the brand as "BrakeMotive" in the item details. The word "Akebono" does not appear on the page for the direct item. Maybe these are knock-offs afterall.

I stand by what I said about Napa/Rock Auto's calipers probably being authentic OEM, but it's like these may not be. Does that mean they suck/are unsafe/etc... who knows. OP please continue to update this post as you install/review them

I was looking at these as well...

My concern is, coming from someone who works in manufacturing, is the QC process. We can generally trust a company like Akebono to be quite diligent, since a brake failure can lead to big lawsuits. Since these are cast aluminum parts, you have to be aware of potential voids - yikes.

I know that Akebono has manufacturing facilities in China, it's entirely possible that these calipers are made on the same tooling as the legit items. It's not unknown for old tooling to go missing, and show up in the factory down the road. It's pretty trivial to avoid the raised logo, these are often inserts anyways. Old tooling is okay, usually just leading to a heavier than ideal part, a problem for the factory but not really for the end user. But are they being checked properly? Is the rest of the process reliable?

Legit Akebono calipers aren't very expensive, and certainly cheaper than a crash.

you know what they say, you get what you pay for. Same thing if you buy cheap tires, 200 miles on them and you might send a tire flying..it is not worth the risk. for the same price you could buy used genuine akebonos

That's a good point about missing tooling. When I was talking about the raised akebono logo, I was trying to say that it's harder to fake a raised logo than one that is actually stamped into the metal.

I was operating under the assumption that these were re manufactured akebonos, but maybe that's not the case

The design/cast are probably sold to different places and used on multiple cars. I would be tempted to use it too, but I already bought my new OEM ones from Nissan. A few years ago they were closer to $1K instead of $1500 like they are now

Looks like where they had masking tape on the split line.

I don't know if these are or are not the real thing. They're not in my hand to eye ball them.

I've installed plenty of rebuilt calipers in my time. Was a ASE Master mechanic for a while. I've seen some nice rebuilds and some real chity stuff from NAPA, Advanced Auto, and the rest. I've had to take new rebuilt calipers apart to see why they wasn't working. I've found cig butts, metal shavings, broken seals, wrong size pistons, missing seals, wrong size bleeders, you name it. It's not uncommon for a rebuilder to remove names on the parts. I have yet to see a rebuilder recoat the bore in a caliper. Too much time and money. A quick hone to smooth out the wall and that's it.

Here's pictures from a set of 'bono's I rebuilt for a forum member. He wanted no finish on the calipers. Just bare metal. And there is no coating in the bores.

:iagree:

More pic's.

The blue on the calipers is for checking contact at the split line. Have almost 100%.

More pic's 2.

More pic's 3.

More pic's 4.

More pic's 5.

Here's my calipers. :tup:

The rubber o-ring around the bleeder doesn't do crap. It just keeps dirt away from the threads. When the calipers get hot on the track. The bleeders will leak.

Sorry, I was at work and they blocked the image.
Those calipers are beautiful.

I decided to mess around with these a bit and discovered an issue. I tried to test fit a brake line and I had issues with one of the rear calipers. The banjo bolt wouldn't thread properly in to it. After the first few turns it became really tight. None of the others had this issue. I'm assuming the threads in the caliper are damaged. I didn't force it because I didnt want to ruin the banjo bolt or further damage the threads in the caliper. I've contacted the seller and asked for a replacement. I'm waiting for their response now.

You have the cheaper Z1 lines?

I do. Is there an issue with them?

No. I have the Z1 premiums. There is no banjo bolts on them. The lines are all double flared fittings.

I picked them up brand new for $60. For the price I couldn't pass them up.

They responded apologized and will be shipping a replacement to me. They dont want the defective one back and didnt ask for any additional funds, so that's about the best response I could hope for.