I have 78K miles on my truck with the OE brakes. I'm planning a brake job in November to replace the front rotors and front and rear pads.

In checking a few online sources, i've noticed that Rockauto is pushing the Powerstop products pretty hard.

Is there a significant advantage to drilled and slotted rotors over a conventional rotor? I don't tow or haul much and the truck is mainly a DD.

I'm definitely NOT going to use Ford rotors again but I'm considering Ford pads.

Ideally I'd love to be able to get 75K-80K miles out of my replacement brakes.

I know these discussions have come up a lot over the years but it never hurts to revisit.

All thoughts are appreciated.

 

I've upgraded three of my vehicles to drilled/slotted rotors and noticed a better bite and what feels like better stopping power, never did any scientific testing so it could all be in my mind.

My 2011 F-150 I bought with 22k miles and the factory wheels/tires had never been off the truck. Around 30k it started getting the warped feeling and finally around 35K I think I replaced the front with Power Slot drilled and slotted rotors with the pads they provided. I'm now at 54K and no shutter/warped feeling with a 1,000 miles towing my travel trailer, the rest commuting with a pretty heavy foot when it comes to brakes. I highly recommend them, I'm still on all factory brakes in the rear but they are getting low and I plan to replace the pads this upcoming weekend.

Our 2013 F-150 sales truck at work now has about 65k miles on it. At 50K it started feeling warped really badly. At that time we put the same Power Slot drilled and slotted rotors with included pads on the front and new pads from the parts store on the rear. As of today 15K later it still stops super smooth and better then it did with the factory items.

So I do believe in the Power Slot products and plan to use them on other vehicles in the future.

 

I'm in the exact place you are, except I only have 52K miles on mine and need brakes. Despite lots of great reviews of Powerstop Z36 pads and drilled and slotted rotors, I haven't seen any reviews of these brakes with over 50,000 miles on them. Reviews are under 20,000 miles, with most under 10,000 miles - any brakes with 20,000 miles or less should work great, so it's hard for me to get very excited about the Powerstops after 5,000 miles.

Coupleofords on this forum recommended used upgraded Ford parts in the following post, but this was only in February, so enough time and miles probably haven't occurred to know if this a good option.

I do know that I'm not happy with factory brakes only going 52,000 miles. My 2015 Ram 1500 work truck currently has 64,000 miles on factory brakes.

I've always had good luck with O'Reillys and Napa parts, but as was getting ready to put brakes on, I got on this site, and I think that I started overthinking this.

My concern with drilled and slotted rotors is pebbles and dirt getting into the drilled holes and slots of the rotor. I've had some rocks get in calipers on different vehicles over the years.

 

You guys must be seriously light brakers since I don't ever expect to get over 30K out of front pads.

At 35K my front factory pads were all but gone.

 

Well I'm at 120,000 miles. My rears have been done once and my fronts have been done twice. Motorcraft all the way. I'm not sure why guys hate the OE stuff so bad. I was shocked at how heavy the front rotors were. They should last me a LONG time, and I tow and live in a hilly area too.

 

Over 76,000 on the original brakes on my 2010 at work. Hard stops from interstate speeds to hit crossovers are the norm. Driving miles and miles of road stopping every 100 foot are the norm.

These brakes last incredibly well.

Maybe driving in the mountains is worse,

 

At 20K I put on Power Stop drilled and slotted rotors with Hawk ceramic pads. I now have 89K miles on the truck with 10K of towing miles. They did up my stopping power and they haven't warped. The ceramic pads do put out a bit more dust on the wheels, but they increase the stopping power. When towing I'm puling my either my '67 F100 or a light weight 1700 lb off road car on a flat bed that weighs 1900 lbs empty.

 

Drilled & Slotted Rotor's make a HUGE improvement on Braking, the biggest change is the brakes new found ability to dissipate heat. Heat is what causes warping & brake fade, ask anyone in the racing industry.
That's why all high performance vehicles, sport bikes, race cars, etc. use Cross Drilled & Slotted Rotors.

That being said, I upgraded my SuperDuty Diesel, my past supercharged street racing truck, my current F150 & as soon as the wife's 2016 Fusion needs brakes, you guessed it, I'll upgrade those as well. Of course every Crotch-Rocket I've ever had is equipped from the factory this way.

I love Ceramic for nothing but a racing vehicle or even a grocery getter, but if you have a truck that pulls anything, you'll need some metal in there & companies like HAWK & PowerStop make great options for this.

That being said my current F150 has had a full PowerStop Kit installed for over a year now & I couldn't be happier
Click on Link below for pics/info :
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post16559929

 

They make a difference on the track, but for street/DD use, slotted and drilled rotors are primarily about aesthetics. I wouldn't shy away from them (as long as they're quality items), but I wouldn't pay extra for them, either.

At 45K miles my brakes were shaking horribly when slowing from highway speeds. Based on recommendations I found, I went with the Powerstop Z36 rotors (yeah, drilled and slotted) and pads for the fronts on my '13 STX RCSB. I'm nearing 77K miles now, and I couldn't be happier with my decision. I've done some trailering with them and they've done good for me.

FWIW, the factory pads were still in good shape with a lot of life left in them, but I couldn't deal with the shaking.

 

I hear people say things like "I swapped to drilled/slotted rotors and it bites harder." No, you just had old, worn brakes; new OEM parts would have had the same effect. Drilled and/or slotted rotors are made to dissipate heat and don't increase braking power. The type of material and surface area do that.

I use Wagner rotors and pads on my truck. They work great, are quiet, and don't throw much dust. I have used the Powerstop stuff on my wife's Accord and my Mustang, mostly because they're affordable and do the job. I don't use drilled/slotted rotors on anything around here but motorcycles. When you start carving up the steel, you are asking for cracks.

 

Around 87k miles my stock brakes started to exhibit warped rotors. I would say that any manufacturer would have bragging rights if their stock brakes lasted 87k with no issues at all.

with that being said I inspected my factory brakes and noticed some uneven rotor wear on the imsi2de of both front rotors.

I decided to go with the z36 extreme truck and tow package for the front brakes. Came with new drilled and slotted rotors, pads, caliper slides, caliper pin sleeves, as well as high temp grease for the slides.

install was pretty straight forward and after bedding my new brakes in I couldn't believe how much less pedal I needed to stop my truck. It seems to stop faster with a significantly less amount of pedal pressure than before.

 

Just put new pads on the rear. They were all factory never been touched with 54,033 miles. I would not have made it until April on these...

Factory pad on top, new "premium" Advanced Auto pad on bottom.

 

I've had really good luck with the brake pads from advance.

Their wearever Platinum are the best brakes I've used since bendex all but stopped supporting the consumer market.

Unless you got their "silver" you got good brakes.

 

That's true also. Holes and slots reduce friction surface area, which reduces braking capacity. Are they dissipating enough heat to made the trade-off worth it? On a race track, maybe. On the street, no.

 

For those who want a little more explanation on drilled/slotted rotors.


To me, there are more cons than pros. Drilled are not needed at all anymore, even on supercars due to improvements in pad materials. Old pads used asbestos as a bonding agent and when they wore down at temperature, they would create a pocket of gas and reduce braking effectiveness. The holes gave the gas somewhere to go. Pad technology today does not create these gasses that need a place to go.

They just "look cool" so manufacturers still include them.

Drilled can also be a point of high stress and lead to cracking:



Slotted have race use but also increase pad wear. Most race applications don't use slotted anymore.

Here is a rotor on a modern F1 car. Aside from being built beefy, they use plain old ventilated technology.



I'll stick with plain old ventilated for my next set.