Quote:
Originally Posted by Tristor
Most of the time when people say their rotors "warped", that's because they experience shuddering in the pedal and after taking it in its shown they are out of true when checked with a dial indicator. But they're not mechanically warped like this implies in the vast majority of cases, instead this is caused by an uneven buildup of pad material and carbon deposits. The underlying root cause of that is nearly always one of the following five things, in order of commonality:
1) Improper bedding procedure after rotor/pad installation.
2) Wheel hub out of true (most shops fail to correctly verify hub and rotor runout with a dial indicator)
3) Improper (excessive) torque applied during tire and wheel installation causing rotor to be forced out of true (this also damages your wheel bearings and hub assembly)
4) Uneven rust build-up on the rotor face from the car sitting parked a long time was not cleared prior to hard braking leaving uneven pad material that exacerbates over time.
5) The rotor had a casting issue during manufacturing which resulted in an uneven surface.
Only one of these issues is actually caused by a "bad" rotor, and generally regardless of cause it first manifests to the casual driver around 5000 miles after pad/rotor service. Given this, someone reporting that they experienced "warped rotors" after 6 months means absolutely fuck all about Centric quality. Given the track record of Centric I 99.99999% guarantee their issue was caused by #1, #2, or #3. There's a lot of knuckleheads that don't know what a dial indicator is, don't give a fuck about wheel bearing play, and think 7 ugga uggas on the 1/2" impact is the right torque spec for lug nuts.
But you do you man, if you want to spend more money for no reason since you're not doing performance driving, by all means go for it. DBA makes fantastic products too, at a premium price.
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We make 4 million rotors a year at my one plant. We get 2 or 3 warranty claims (from the dealers) a year for "warped" rotors. The majority are your numbers 1 through 3. A few are usually prefixed by the claim statement with something like "was pulling a non braked trailer down the rocky mountains for 6 hours and smelled smoke. Customer complained that brakes felt strange afterward. Rotor found to be warped". These ones are usually a really pretty shade of blue when we get hem back for analysis. Needless to say the warranty claims are denied.
Your number 5 is only possible if the customer didn't want to pay for 100% end of line gauging. Like I said before the customer sets the specs and gauging can vary from 100% to 1% depending on their requirements. Not to say that a bad one couldn't slip through or 100% system but to place a failed rotor on a good finished product skid would mean taking it off the reject chute and carrying it about 50 feet to the palatalizing area. There are very few operators that are that ambitious.