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.