I have a 03 2wd Excursion in need of new pads and rotors. My wife mostly uses it as a grocery getter in town but we do tow or 6k camper to Colorado every once and a while. I was going to get the powerstop rotors and ceramic scorched pads from rock auto for all for corners. Any one use those or have suggestions.

 

I definitely suggest that your Ex be equipped with rotors and pads. They're pretty handy.

Seriously, I've seen a lot of opinions on them go through these forums. Based on suggestions, I put the O'Reilly rotors (not drilled) and pads (metallic) on mine and have about 40,000 miles on them now with no issues. When they need to be replaced again I'll probably put the same thing back on.

~Bass

 

A good set of Centric rotors and pads will do you fine.

 

What he said. I love Centric brake products and have used everything from their rebuilt calipers to rotors to pads to shoes, etc. All of them have been great. Currently running Centric pads and rotors on the back of my Ex and have a set of Centric rotors waiting to go on the front with Akebono pads.

 

Anyone have any experience with these.
F R Kit Premier Series High Carbon Diamond Slot Brake Rotors Ceramic Pads R534 | eBay

 

I totally agree, everybody wants to put super duper stuff in but what for. Maybe if you do a lot of heavy towing in the mountains but otherwise put your money in the tank. I might add that my rotors have 170k miles on them and it stops very well with my O'Reilly's metallic bottom of the line pads. I can change the pads in a few hours when and if needed for peanuts.

 

Recommend staying away from the ceramic's. They get too hot. My frozen rotors were purple with stress cracks after using them.
Went to the Hawk Super Duty pads and the stopping distance on them is way better than the normal semi metallic pads. A few times I know for sure that these saved my ****! I bet by inches in some cases with the crazy drivers around here.

Went with the power stops and a few times, they seems they wanted to start to warp based upon some vibration I was getting, but that went away so far.

If these are problematic this time, I will try the one's from O'Reilly's, but will still use the Hawks.

 

Probably why my rotors have 170k miles on them.

 

Well made, standard rotors that indexed to the hubs for the lowest runout per manual, and either the Hawk LTS pads or the Motorcraft severe duty for the Excursion.

 

Not warping, but developing off-brake induced thickness variation. With a higher rate of applications, the rotors wear true until the next period. Your on the edge, but if the rotors were installed to the lowest runout the issue would most likely never happen. If you had OE Excursion pads or other lower abrasive pads, you would be through the rotors again.

 

Can you explain what you mean my indexing the rotors? I assume it means to bolt tight the rotors and check for runout with a dial indicator, document then move the rotor one hole clockwise and retest. After trying all combinations final install is the location with the lowest runout. Correct?

 

Correct. It's been a procedure that we have been trying to get techs to do for years.

For the Excursion you can get 4 larger diameter nuts to use as spacers, then use the stock lug nut on those 4 of 8 lugs, skipping every other one. We found that on these vehicles you only need to torque to 80 lb-ft for this procedure, but do in in the cross pattern. Make sure the hub and rotor mating surfaces are clear of any debris or rust .

We would mark the end of one lug with a yellow markers as the home point, and also make a mark at the starting hole in the rotor. If you have a rotor that comes in higher then the service manual spec of 0.0015" total runout, you could try the rotor on the opposite hub. The idea is to get the height point of runout of the hub opposite of the highest runout point of the rotor, using the machining tolerances of both parts to get to the objective. Work around to the best location and double mark where it's going to stay in case you might have to remove the rotor.

If you find you can't get a rotor in spec, then it's time to check the hub runout.

We probably mounted 800 front rotors on these and F series trucks and I can remember only one instance of an OE rotor not working on one of the two sides. Aftermarket, different story.

If you every get into a high heat situation and feel some pulsation, at the earliest convenience loosen the lug nuts and retighten them in a cross pattern and in a stepped torque sequence to the stated 165 lb-ft value. I usually go 80/120/165 lb-ft. The cross pattern we used on 8 lug wheels was every third lug in a clockwise direction. Rotor measurements post installation showed this was good way to not stress distort the rotors with the steel wheels, aluminum wheels not so important. But you use the best method.

When doing that you'll see how time intensive it is and why those who are paid flat rate are reluctant. But there are millions of dollars of vehicle tests that show doing this is necessary with brakes today that are going more then the 25-30k miles of decades past. When pads wore in that amount of time the rotors were already at the point of needing to be trued.

 

Sounds like the very scientific method which in my case is not practical as I will not pay a tech extra hours to do all this work which most techs probably will not be able to do this to this level anyhow.

What I don't get here is if I put on new rotors every time, and have been through several sets over the years, why are they smooth for up to 50K miles or so, then the start to develop this pulsation(which I call warping)?
Also, once I had them turned and on the lathe, they revealed the rotors were warped.
I have also read about the glazing affect that causes the pulsation which one can use an orbital sander on the rotor surface to break this glaze.

On my previous set of rotors that were displaying the warped feel, to fix them temporarily, I would go down a long hill at 60mph, and stop as fast as I could. This seemed to heat them up and I no longer had the warp feel or pulsation for several weeks, only for it to eventually return. Maybe that was clearing the glaze? Or the heatup and then cooling was helping reduce the warping...i dunno, but trust me, it worked.
Everyone riding with me hated when I had to come to a stop light as the whole dash would shake from the "warp".

To me, this is an engineering issue if one has to go through all this procedure with runout to get them right.
Why they don't just oversize the rotors pads on such a heavy vehicle is beyond my understanding. Seems the manufacturers always try to cheap out on the brakes! Same goes for our Ford Focus with squealing drum brakes! Can't get that fixed either. Why they still use drum brakes is amazing! I will not buy another car with drum brakes on them! Haven't checked yet, but if the new Focus's have the disc, I will go for it. If not, will look elsewhere.

GM is the same boat in regards to going cheap on the brakes. My 1991 GMC pickup has had it's issues with brakes as well and I know others that have the same problems I had with like years.

I really wish some of the aftermarkets would make a big brake kit for these so we could get past these issues.

 

You're still thinking this is a heat warping issue and it isn't.

There is not one auto manufacturer that currently recommends rotors be machined on a bench lathe due to the inconsistency in proper mounting.

 

Robert...are you positive you don't have sticking pins?

I only ask because when I first bought my Ex, the previous owner did a "brake job" and I had the pulsations every now and then. I couldn't seem to figure out when it was happening exactly but decided that because of the inconsistency, it was probably the caliper pins.

I took all of the brackets off (the rotors and pads were new) and a couple of the pins were nasty. The guy used axle grease to lube them and it was very tacky.

I cleaned out all the holes and pins and used the red grease sold by napa for chevys. The shudder hasn't completely disappeared but it is much much better.

I'm not sure if other "damage" has occurred from driving with stuck pins - but I'm assuming that's why the shudder didn't go away completely. It's tolerable now and barely noticeable. My wife doesn't notice much but I do however, I'm honestly suspecting one of my new tires may be the issue now as the tech at discount tire, IMO, did not do a very good job balancing these new duratracs. Great tires BTW!