If you had to pay for each rebuilt caliper ...

When you get a rebuilt caliper, open the box and look at the pitting of the caliper body. If it's highly pitted its had a long environmental exposure, and pitting would be worse in the sealing area. Ask for another.


0 to 125,000 miles OE set of calipers, replaced with NEW OE calipers. Changes due to rotor vane rust issues and 2nd pad replacement (pistons were fine, it was time age wise).
125,000 to 205,000 miles 2nd set of pads but still OK on calipers and rotors.

It's the rebuilts that are the killers, and what makes you think the SSBC are one and done forever. And if you keep flipping calipers back to Advance, and I'm sure others are too, how many recycles do you think those caliper bodies have been through?

Guess I won't be getting the rebuilt calipers from Advance, that's a load of calipers for the Akebono design series. Those of us that do our own don't have the issues.

 

 

I’m aggravated and in a whining mood most days including this morning, no problem.

I haven't had a hung up caliper since the late 80's, but I feel your frustration. The exterior inspection is just guide, unless you pull the caliper apart there is no way to know how good the caliper body is, the rubber parts, or the lowest price phenolic piston the rebuilder could find. That's a friggin lot of calipers to have gone through. But I can tell you from my past life the parts houses don't care. They will flip a caliper, charge it back to the rebuilder, and you're going to buy a set of pads and brake fluid during the flip. It's a win for them with lifetime warranty on the calipers. My opinion is often you can get a prayer with a brand name rebuild like Motorcraft, Raybestos or Wagner. But that can even depend on what's going on at those companies rebuilders as they are usually farmed out today too.

But I have a bad attitude towards where the aftermarket industry has gone. When we couldn't get a pallet load of new calipers from the caliper manufacturer (supplier test support) and we couldn't get brand new calipers out of the dealer (usually could), we did the Motorcraft rebuilds. Most of the time those were fine, but our caliper life was either 4 days or 15 days, no driving in rain. Not a lot of long term exposure history there, but temps its rare to see in the consumer market. But the Motorcrafts were supposed to come with a core inspection, OE caliper manufactured seals and pistons. Again, 10 years ago and not sure Ford is holding to that promise, my Ford rebuilt motor an example.

Usually the service industry figures out pretty quick where not to get parts from, a comeback can really hurt a service bay unless the deal is free caliper, labor and other parts charged, then the service bay and the parts store (again) wins. In an enthusiasts site like this the only way is with a very good, specific poll where it can be identified why the failure occurred (pistons, slides, pad frozen in bracket) and that's if they really figured out the problem. Many times its "bad caliper" and no why.

 

I just got a new set of cardone's last year, But you got to remember to lube all the caliper at lease two times a year.