Anybody running EBay rotors on their 370z?
 

At ~33,000 miles, my stock rotors are starting to make stopping a little bit of a shaken choir. I'd say by the spring time I need some replacements for all 4 wheels.

Stock rotors are not cheap for these cars, and aftermarket Stillen and other brands are also pretty high in price. This led me to EBay, where a 10 star seller has an entire kit of either slotted or drilled rotors with ceramic pads for ~$170 to ~$250 for all four wheels.

I'd probably just toss the brake pads and go with some street proven Hawks or another name brand pads.

So what about the rotors? Anyone try em? Do they fit sport version 370z?

not running em. and they are probably okay.. but man. I'd go with an autozone brand vs a ebay in rotors.

You can get a full set of sport package rotors for 400 from z1 or the non sport for cheaper.

But yes, i'd def get a good set of pads.

Can't you get the stock rotors cut and there you go problem done.

I didnt think the stock rotors could be cut, but it might be an option.

ebay rotors are usually made with cheap material and will rust, warp very quickly.

If you are on a budget and are just looking for a good street rotor check out Brake Performance. They use Centric blanks. Centric is a big OE supplier and OE replacement company. They also own Stoptech and Powerslot.

You can get the front and rear blank rotors for about $370 and they are OE quality. Perfect if you just want a replacement for a street driven car.

Ebay anything is a serious gamble. I try to only sell on Ebay, and you can still get screwed by a-hole buyers. Buying something like brake parts from Ebay would signify a buyer's death wish.

Do not buy Ebay junk. You get what you pay for and when it comes to brakes, you better buy quality. The Ebay junk is always some cheap made in China crap. Avoid it at all costs.

Why can't you get the factory rotors cut?

I once upon-a-time bought drilled rotors on EBay for a Mazda rx7. Granted it was not a daily driver like my Z, but they were a good deal and lasted until after I sold the car. I'm sure they may have been Chinese or whatever but I liked them enough with the Hawk HP Plus pads to recommend to others.

Now that I half answered my own question...

Anyone experiance eBay rotors for their Z?

With eBay rotors you are taking a gamble. My guess is no one here has run eBay rotors on their Z. Why buy a $30k+ car and cheap out on something as important as the braking system? At the very least you should make sure that you are getting OE quality replacements.

i'll say it again. Get the rotors cut lol
Frank

yea...centric blanks on tirerack.com are only 98bucks/rotor for the front and 68bucks/rotor for the rear. i would NOT trust my life to ebay rotors. they make work, but there are some things you just dont cheap out on


http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/brake...=Sport+Package

You can get factory rotors cut, but they need to basically be brand new. But picking up the factory rotors will also cost you and arm and a leg. Quality castings, rotor material, and the source of everything plays a huge role in what you get, and as others have stated, you're playing with brakes.. what stops your car.

Also just slamming a drill into a rotor is not the only thing that goes into these. I'll speak of STILLEN rotors as I obviously have intimate knowledge, but the steps we go through add cost to the final product, because it's done right.

- Quality castings chosen with premium materials, or at times we have our own castings made if we feel nothing on the market will be good enough.

- CAD-designed slot and drilled positioning, to ensure proper vane drilling, as well as precise and planned slots/holes to maximize pad wear (uneven hole patterns will leave huge high/low spots on pads.. all patterns are NOT the same).

- Special techniques and tooling required to radius chamfer our cross-drilled holes to minimize stress cracks, as well as ramp out our slots to eliminate pad buildup. Literally takes special proprietary bits to achieve these.

- Stripping and zinc plating the final drilled/slotted/J-Hook rotors, ensuring all areas of non-contact with the pad have maximum resistance to rusting, etc.

While we might be at a small premium for what we're providing, I can ensure you we do everything we can to produce a superior product, and keep the costs at a minimum. And there are a LOT in this industry that are doing anything they can to achieve just a price point..

Just things to consider.. and sharing my knowledge seeing our brake department in action..

Are the brake rotors the same for Base and Sport models? I see Nismo may have something different, but then I thought Sport and Nismo had the same brakes?

Sport and Nismo do have the same brakes. The base brakes are different (smaller).

It's not the size that matters, or at least that's what the ladies tell me. :ugh2:

theres a minimum rotor width number in the owners manual. yes the factory rotors can be turned but only to that minimum thickness.

One of the troubles with buying "eBay rotors" is that there is no such thing -- just companies looking for the lowest cost marketing outlet. While not all sellers are bad, many are small operations using Centric (who is not a true OE supplier to my knowledge and is not a manufacturer -- they just source from low cost manufacturing countries like many others do) or other blanks and sophomoric finishing techniques. There is very little in actual quality control as they do not have the staff to perform those tasks. They also struggle to provide customer service after the sale in the event anything goes wrong.

Others turn to NAPA or other big chain store, who buy cheap white box rotors in bulk from the lowest cost supplier of the day. One set might give good enough results, but the next might be horrible. Of course, they just replace a bad set, which is great for those customers who have plenty of unallocated time on their hands and don't mind the hassle of taking the same parts on and off their cars repeatedly.

Most people are better off shopping for quality parts to begin with. Obviously, look for the best deals you can as there are specials from time to time. But trying to save money up front that ends up costing more later (in time, effort and money) is not usually the best way to go.

Just thought I would put my two in....

I put a set of ebay slotted on a friends 350 a couple years back and everything seemed to be ehhhh ok when braking until you need to break from 100+.
The initial breaking from the 100 was fine but every time you break after that point you get terrible wheel wobble.

About a year later a buddy "hooked me up" with some rotors for my STI and yea I dont know how the FUH it happened but a huge a55 chunk broke off the rotor when driving to school! I came to later find out that my buddy got them off of ebay.

I personally will never buy ebay parts. I think especially if its stoping your car!!! lol your life depends on it and your cars life (yes she is a living entity in which we are one once I enter her... not in that way sickos!) so why be cheap? Go the extra mile and unclench them butt-cheaks!

Agreed. I did this with my '09 Acura TSX. 22K miles and I had roasted the stockers. 5K on Power slots & HPS and very happy.

I learned long ago stay away from the cheap (mystery meat) rotors.

For my Z, this would be the absolute minimum. When I need new brakes I'll probably do a Stop-tech upgrade as I did on my 350Z.

Me too. That's why I give them a hundred miles three inches at a time.

Geez, I hope that is true.

save a couple of hundred bucks and get the rotor cut

Cut rotors have a couple of drawbacks. In both cases you're working with units that are now thinner. One is the ability to shed the same degree of heat - remember rotors don't stop you, pads don't stop you, it's a combination of the friction they generate that does the trick (along with tire grip- of course). Thinner rotors are also much more likely to warp from quick temperature changes such as running through a water puddle that cools them too quickly.

As to Ebay stuff - it's cheap for a reason but don't think for a minute that the Autozone, Advance Auto, O'Reilly's or whatever down the street doesn't source them from the same wholesaler who in turn sourced them from a manufacturer that gave them the best deal. There's some truth in "Tommy Boy". Even Nissan sources it's components from different outfits but you can normally assume that the specifications are going to be tighter, the inspections and QC are going to be better - no manufacturer is going to want to lose a contract with Nissan for supplying junk parts.