Buck91,
I put a set of Raybestos Professional Rotors on my Dakota about 3 years ago, and they are doing well, no problems. Of course I checked for parallelism and on-vehicle runout as part of the install. The reason I tried them is they come with a guarantee on flatness and runout (which would be off-vehicle runout). I haven't tried their higher end line.
Originally Posted By: ejes
Pedal pulsation comes from thickness variation, which in turn is caused by excessive lateral runout. Almost all rotors come from China nowadays. I would not mix the different types however. Generally, police/fleet/HD rotors have less thickness variation and reduce pulsation so they last longer.
Thickness variation is but one cause of pedal vibration. It can be avoided by 1.) buying rotors with a flatness guarantee (like the Raybestos has) and 2.) Confirming with instruments. All you need is a common micrometer, measure the rotor thickness at 8 more-or-less equidistant points around friction surface. The resulting measurements should vary not at all, factory specs say less than .0015", I've found even the cheaper Chinese rotors beat that. But I always check anyway. (This is a different check than run-out, which is done on vehicle with a dial indicator.
Originally Posted By: Trav
I see this article quoted on the board like it was gospel, it was written by one person and that is his opinion. I totally disagree with his conclusions, IMO the chances are he probably never operated a brake lathe in his life and is talking about racing brakes that use a lot of pad material in a very short time and do deposit pad material heavily on the rotors. Most posters have never seen a brake lathe never mind operated one so they don't know and understandably just quote the article.
Sorry, while the author is no longer able to defend himself, he was THE EXPERT on braking.
Originally Posted By: Trav
Over the last 40+ years I too have cut literally hundreds maybe even thousands of drums and rotors, there was a time not too long ago that every car that got a brake job had its drums/rotors cut and calipers and cylinders rebuilt.
When cutting the rotors it wasn't old pad material being cut that I can tell you, it was metal. rotors do warp that's a 100% fact. As in your case they were mounted properly on a clean surface and had low install runout numbers.
I use to hate the singing when someone forgot to belt the rotor or drum in the lathe, it would drive drive people crazy.
I too have rotors that warped, one set after an extreme over-tightening by Goodyear Tire & Auto center. (I had to replace a bunch of studs it was so bad). So yes it happens, but I hardly mention it any more because I got shouted down by people quoting the article.
I've learned a lot from Trav and respect his opinions, but you're dead wrong about pad buildup. How else do you explain a rotor with in-spec runout and parallelism/flatness, and severe brake shudder problems?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043164815004792