Re: Can anyone tell the difference between rotors and pads (truthfully)?

I'm realizing neither machining the rotors nor simply replacing them will
> solve the problem, long term.

What do you mean by "long term". As far as I can tell you are resisting the idea of fixing your brakes because eventually they will require fixing again. If you are hard on the brakes you can expect to have to repair them quite often. If you put your mind to it you can easily wear your brakes out in days. Nevertheless, if you develop a pulsation in the brakes and you replace the pads and rotors you can reasonably expect that to fix the problem and it should last as long as the originals did if you drive the same as before. Anybody who knows what they are doing will also make sure the calipers and pistons are clean, that they move freely and are generally in good working order and if not they should be fixed also. In most cases buying replacement rotors costs the same or very little more than having the rotors turned so just buy the rotors and you won't have to worry about the rotors not being turned properly. That should address most of the worries from the article you are so fond of.

-jim

Well, I'm not sure I trust your analysis. It is quite likely that in one way or another heat was a major factor that led to the problem developing. That put another way, if you drive so that the brakes never get hot it's likely they will last a very long time. All the energy in a car moving at 70 mph goes into the brakes when you make a sudden stop. You don't want to put your hand on the discs after doing that. And if your rotors are truly not the same thickness that didn't happen all at once - it happened over time and quite a number of things could have started the process most all of them related to heat, followed by rust, salt and dirt. I assume you feel that your brakes needed replacement sooner than they should have. That points to the driver as the most likely cause. Some drivers regularly have to replace brakes every 10000 miles others can get 100000 miles (altho that may be hard to do where salt plays a big role in the deterioration of brakes). Also, some cars tend to have brakes that last longer and take more abuse than others.

In order to change the brake pads and rotors you need to move the calipers and pistons to their wide open position of there travel. You should be able to tell if they are able to move normally. Rust of course is what usually causes sticking problems. Disc brake pistons don't have much clearance so it doesn't take much to jam them up.