[bhvrdr]

well it say OEM everywhere and personally I can't tell them apart. Maybe you can.

Nowhere does it say the are OEM. Not a single place in their advertising. "OEM quality" is what it says which means it's not OEM. It also very clearly states the are aftermarket "top euro" brand which are ebay specials from china. Of course you could tell the difference. They dont come in oem boxes and don't have any oem part numbers and the pads have no DOT fade rating at all on them.


Gotta look at the words closely.


Theyre sold out of the fraud capital of the world, south Florida.

This ebay advertisement look familiar.
.

 

[Alfie]

Debbie, Don't but from their website. I was wrong but bhvrdr can help you. Thank bhvrdr

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

Sold and installed millions of brake parts professionally over the years. Not exaggerating and not as a shade tree mechanic. As the responsibly party who holds legal responsibility if those parts fail and cause an accident, working out of some of the most respected and busy service centers on the west coast.

Rotors are rotors, they are literally hunks of metal machined via the most basic machining equipment avalible. Caveman technology.

Cheap brands might warp more, might make more noise. Probably won't. The majority of rotors installed on every car in the world are made in China now. Including Brembo rotors. Brembo has one of the largest manufacturing networks in China. Very likely the rotors installed at the factory are made in China, they also might be made in the US or Italy, regardless the quality is the same, country of origin does not matter. Same metal alloys, same equipment doing the work.

https://www.aftermarketnews.com/brembo-gets-chinafoundry-for-brake-plant/

Pads are different, however it isn't that a cheap pad will fail. No, the chance of that is pretty slim and no worse than an expensive brand. The issue has to do with those DOT ratings.

You want to use pads with the same ratings. Which does require using a pad with the rating. I suggest doing that, and using the same rating as the vehicle manufacturer specifies. Regardless of who he vehicle manufacturer is.

If, however, you don't care what the rating is and instead pick your brake pads based on personal preference, "feel", and your own wealth of knowledge (that you believe is greater than the team of people who engineered the car) use what you want, rating or no. The DOT rating has nothing to do with quality, it is simply a way to know if you are getting brake pads with the same level of friction which relates to how agressivly the car stops. It has nothing to do with quality or longevity, and while the ratings do show stopping ability just carrying a rating does not mean superior ability, that depends on what the rating actually is.

Alpine Performance/TopEuro buys their parts from the same factories in China that Brembo does. I have used their parts and find them to be very good quality. Never used them on an Alfa. Installed them on on Mercedes, Bentleys and a couple Aston Martins. Never had a problem.

Just my experience feel free to disagree.

 

[bhvrdr]

Sold and installed millions of brake parts professionally over the years. Not exaggerating...

If we assumed you mean the minimum amout of the plural form of million as 2 million brake parts, that's alot!


If you are 80 years of age and started doing brake jobs at 8 years of age and we assume approximately 12 brake parts per job that would mean from 8 years of age until 80 years of age you have done 7 full brake jobs per day 365 days per year! Impressive.

As the responsibly party who holds legal responsibility if those parts fail and cause an accident, working out of some of the most respected and busy service centers on the west coast....

Sounds important to make sure oem quality brake parts are used

Rotors are rotors, they are literally hunks of metal machined via the most basic machining equipment avalible. Caveman technology.

Im a bit surprised to hear you say that.

Rotors are not rotors. You have steel rotors, iron rotors, high carbon steel rotors, carbon ceramic rotors. You have cryonized, coated, non coated, single piece, 2 piece. You have flat faced, slotted, drillled, drilled and slotted, j hooks and on and on and on.

Then you have rotor cooling design. You have our OEM brembo PVD cooling design, you have straight pillars. You have vaned rotors, curved vaned rotors, directional curved vane rotors. You have 32 vane, 48 vane, 72 vane, etc etc etc

Cheap brands might warp more, might make more noise....

Agree. And they might crack more, and retain heat more, etc etc. Thats because theyre not all the same.

Pads are different...The issue has to do with those DOT ratings.

You want to use pads with the same ratings.

Interesting

Installed them [Top Euro] on Mercedes, Bentleys and a couple Aston Martins. Never had a problem.

The Top Euro dont have pad ratings. Since you should install the same pad ratings that you took off how did you find the Top Euro you installed had the same pad ratings?

Alpine Performance/TopEuro buys their parts from the same factories in China that Brembo does.

....

Very likely the rotors installed at the factory are made in China, they also might be made in the US or Italy, regardless the quality is the same, country of origin does not matter. Same metal alloys, same equipment doing the work.

Thats interesting because our rotors are manufactured in Polonia and our pads in Italy.

Top Euro is getting their parts from Polond and Italy?

Do you know which factory Top Euro buys their products and to what specs they build them for them such as vane design, carbon content, pad rating?

 

[GWRmotohead]

For some of my cars, I only bought white box rotors, and only had one set where there was vibration. (Napa, bought them out, so no more good deals) and a couple of sets where they seemed to ripple quicker, they were cheap rotors and appeared to wear faster. Never went the white box route for my performance cars, seemed like I was asking for trouble.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

The parts installed at the factory come from all over the world. Country of origin does not matter. Including the brake parts.

Including jobs performed by technicians under my supervision, jobs I hold legal responsibility of the performance should there be an accident? Yes. Keep up with your assumptions.

 

[bhvrdr]

The parts installed at the factory come from all over country of origin does not matter. Including the brake parts.

Including jobs performed by technicians under my supervision, jobs I good legal responsibility off the performance of should there be an accident? Yes. Keep up with your assumptions.

Neither of those things are what you said.


What you said was...

Alpine Performance/TopEuro buys their parts from the same factories in China that Brembo does...

Our rotors are made in Poland and pads in Italy. Im asking what exact factory does Top Euro get their parts from if its the same as Brembo?



You also said...

Rotors are rotors, they are literally hunks of metal machined via the most basic machining equipment avalible. Caveman technology.

Im a bit surprised to hear you said that.


Rotors are not rotors. You have steel rotors, iron rotors, high carbon steel rotors, carbon ceramic rotors. You have cryonized, coated, non coated, single piece, 2 piece. You have run-out. You have flat faced, slotted, drillled, drilled and slotted, j hooks and on and on and on.


Then you have rotor cooling design. You have our OEM brembo PVD cooling design, you have straight pillars. You have vaned rotors, curved vaned rotors, directional curved vane rotors. You have 32 vane, 48 vane, 72 vane, etc etc etc

Cheap brands might warp more, might make more noise....

Agree. And they might crack more, and retain heat more, etc etc. Thats because theyre not all the same.

Pads are different...The issue has to do with those DOT ratings.


You want to use pads with the same ratings.

Agreed

Installed them [Top Euro] on Mercedes, Bentleys and a couple Aston Martins. Never had a problem.

The Top Euro dont have pad ratings. Since you should install the same pad ratings that you took off how did you find the Top Euro you installed had the same pad ratings?

 

[ducky]

Agree with above. Not all rotors are the same. The OE rotors for lots of of high end European cars are made in Poland (LR, Porsche, AR, are a few I know of) as Poland still has foundries. There's a range of quality between aftermarket rotors and you generally get what you pay for. Some additional issues with AM rotors I've encountered: they aren't balanced well; the coatings used on the rotor hat are not as robust and they rust like crazy; they wear faster.

Some people are ok with those compromises. Other's not so much.

 

[lost1750GTV]

Brembo may very well makes some stuff in China, for certain products or countries (like china). You can buy a genuine made by fender telecaster guitar made in at least 5 different countries. The shape is the same etc - but they are not the same. Not to say the cheapest are bad or not a good value, but there are reasons people pay more for certain ones, and it is the manufacturers intent to differentiate these "same" products.
The window sticker has a % country of origin for components - i dont recall China being listed.
There was another thread where someone thought Chinese wheels were oem - I dont think so.

 

[Alfie]

The parts installed at the factory come from all over the world. Country of origin does not matter. Including the brake parts.

Including jobs performed by technicians under my supervision, jobs I hold legal responsibility of the performance should there be an accident? Yes. Keep up with your assumptions.

Agree with you but if they want to put OEM, let them. To me, there's no preference but obviously they need the OEM. no reason to argue with that. Most of the steels and irons come from china and russia but for Brembo, they must have their own sources, hence the price.Think Cuba? hmm I look for ISO 9001 designation.. that's all i look for...

 

[jvincetti1991]

The Brembo direct rotors are moderately priced, especially for their quality I'm at 33k miles and the brakes work fantastic. I would stick with new OE Brembos unless you want a lighter performance option, then perhaps the Tarox rotors for the Giulia would be a good choice.

I went with supposedly high-quality aftermarket "OEM quality" rotors on my GMC Envoy years ago and the pedal feel/stopping power was just atrocious. I am very wary of anything claiming to be "OE" equivalent that isn't actually used as OEM equipment.

After owning many different cars, I learned you are almost always best off buying OEM parts and they can often be purchased directly from the manufacturers to avoid dealer markup.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

Exactly @ducky . For the most part it has to do with quality control, to the point alot of OE-type aftermarket parts are basically the parts that didn't meet the QC checks, or parts that were manufactured at secondary suppliers (lower tier suppliers that sell parts to the manufacturer when the main supplier has a shortage or otherwise can't fulfill the needed amount of parts. Generally these suppliers don't meet the same level of QC.) A rep for Alpine once told me that is how they source, take that as you may. However that's why I don't stress about the DOT rating on the box when and if a customer wants to use Alpine or requests and inexpensive part in which case I may suggest them. It isn't uncommon to get parts from them that are the equal of factory, seems about 50/50 in terms of pedal feel, which is better than most "cheap" brands.

Might wear a little faster, might dust more, rust more, squeal/squeak/make noise more, etc.

However they aren't a guaranteed of failure by any stretch of the imagination and for many drivers the differences are un-noticable.

If Chinese parts were bad quality/caused failure Toyota wouldn't use them, but they do. The reason "luxury" manufacturers don't has to do with QC and product differentiation/pricing justification. The Supra has Chinese sources parts and the Z4 has Polish. Do you really think the Supra is the one with a greater chance of having problems? Cool.


I don't use Alpine or TopEuro parts on my cars, but I can also deduct any parts costs from my taxes, if I don't just have them comped by the family business, as such, I don't care what the price is. So I don't assume others should do what I do.

Best all around choice to get the OE part from the OE supplier, however, when a customer requests something else for whatever reason, I give the warning about less QC and possible convenience/appearance/sound/pedal feel/durability issues then do what the customer says. Never had a problem with that, lots of happy customers. Just like most people can't tell the difference between a FWD biased AWD system and RWD system, most people can't tell the fiber variations in pedal feel. (Although I would guess a larger portion of Alfisti can).

Do what you want, educate yourself, try to do it without prejudice though.

Gotta go test drive and Acura now....gotta admit the RDX sounds interesting, want to drive it.

 

[Alfie]

Exactly @ducky . For the most part it has to do with quality control, to the point alot of OE-type aftermarket parts are basically the parts that didn't meet the QC checks, or parts that were manufactured at secondary suppliers (lower tier suppliers that sell parts to the manufacturer when the main supplier has a shortage or otherwise can't fulfill the needed amount of parts. Generally these suppliers don't meet the same level of QC.) A rep for Alpine once told me that is how they source, take that as you may. However that's why I don't stress about the DOT rating on the box when and if a customer wants to use Alpine or requests and inexpensive part in which case I may suggest them.

Might wear a little faster, might dust more, rust more, squeal/squeak/make noise more, etc.

However they aren't a guaranteed of failure by any stretch of the imagination and for many drivers the differences are un-noticable.

If Chinese parts were bad quality/caused failure Toyota wouldn't use them, but they do. The reason "luxury" manufacturers don't has to do with QC and product differentiation/pricing justification. The Supra has Chinese sources parts and the Z4 has Polish. Do you really think the Supra is the one with a greater chance of having problems? Cool.


I don't use Alpine or TopEuro parts on my cars but when a customer requests them, I give the warning about less QC and possible convenience/appearance/sound/durability issues then do what the customer says. Never had a problem with that, lots of happy customers.

Do what you want, educate yourself, try to do it without prejudice though.

Gotta go test drive and Acura now....gotta admit the RDX sounds interesting, want to drive it.

RDX drives like a SUV and MDX like a minivan. It's the lean on turns and softness of the suspensions that turned me off. Maybe they have the sports version...

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

The 2022 is very updated, supossedly as structurally sound as the Stelvio. Maybe better, supossedly changed the suspension setup alot. Plus I want to see how that planetary geared 10 speed Honda tranny performs, driven it once but want to play more.

Not looking to replace my car, just like driving things.

 

[ViscontiVerde 164L*]

Brands to consider
Brembo
Centric
Stoptech
Wagner
dba 4000 or 5000 etc
Alcon
I trust brand names due to experience with them and typically recommendations from fellow track friends...their good experiences and bad.
You want bad, I have had a few of those but company is in process of doing me right.
By and large, Tire Rack sells a lot of fine choices. NAPA has a reputation for solid products over the years. For example, their oil is Pennzoil I believe. Their filters are Wix. They operate like Sears used to do in their prime, by rebadging top shelf brands at a discount. I have never had issues with any NAPA parts and their available inventory is massive. The NAPA Gold line is always a good call. OE+
I love Ebb
ay but buy few auto parts there except for a few brands I know well..unfortunately the underworld has permeated these areas of Ebay....

Remember offroad, SHAWD is slang for front wheel drive with better abilities. No thanks

I too, have had our critical proofreader dissect everything I have said as well. an expert on everything about everything....

 

[ducky]

Plus, you meet the nicest people on a Honda.

My trusty general mechanic who I've been going to for years and rolls his eyes whenever I bring in the Range Rover has implored me to buy a Honda. It's his favorite car to work on. His least favorite, anything from GM.

So you have that going with the Honda.

 

[ViscontiVerde 164L*]

Range Rovers are actually quite easy to work on as were my Jaguars. Far morr service accessible designs than the germans. BMWs are a PIA!!

 

[Debbie]

Thanks everyone for all your advice I went with TopeEuro brakes and rotors $356.89 installation $150 so far all is good! Thanks again!!

 

[jvincetti1991]

Thanks everyone for all your advice I went with TopeEuro brakes and rotors $356.89 installation $150 so far all is good! Thanks again!!

Hi Debbie,

It appears dealer stock on OEM rotors is quite low; how is the quality of those aftermarket rotors you went with? Same pedal feel as stock, slightly better, slightly worse?

 

[GWRmotohead]

local dealer can order rear rotors, but they're a couple days out, and $180 each