Wagner Rotors

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Has anyone tried the Wagner Rotors?I tried the Advance Auto basic rotors with the Wagner Thermoquiet Pads and the rotors are already warped!!So i'm gonna try the Wagner pads and rotors together to see if that will last.
 
The term "Warped Rotors" is misnomer in that the rotors are not really warped, but have developed hot spots due to pad material and resins sticking to the rotors. This is caused by overheating the brakes and/or not properly braking in the pads and rotors.



When brakes are cold they act as a friction material like sand paper. When the brakes get hot to about 800 degrees, the resins in the pad liquify and put a thin coating on the rotors. This coating is refered to as cementite. This make the pads and resins act more like an adhesive. This is why racing brakes do not work so well until they get hot.



Now if you heat up your brakes making a high speed stop like exiting a freeway, and then you come to a complete stop, you will deposit a bit more resin onto the rotor at the spot where the pads have stopped on the rotor. This creates a thick spot of cementite which gets hotter than the rest of the rotor and eventually reaches temperatures in excess of 1100 degrees and causes that spot of metal in the rotor to become hard and brittle and soon you will start to feel vibrations/pulsations/shuttering when applying the brakes.



You can turn the rotors to remove the cementite and a thin layer of metal to eliminiate the high/thick spots, but the hardened metal at the hot spot will not wear evenly and the vibration/pulsations/shuttering will soon return. The more you turn the rotors the thinner they get and the more likely they will overheat.



The best solution is to use quality rotors made to SAE specs. properly break in your pads and rotors. and avoid clamping down on your brakes after a high speed stop. If your driving style is hard on brakes, you might switch to a drilled rotors which cool better. They are more expenisve and can be prone to thermal shock cracking from heating the brakes and driving through a puddle if they are not broke in properly. As an alternative, you might look at slotted or grooved rotors. They tend to scrape the excess softened resins from the pads so that the layer depostited on the rotors is a bit more even, but they will not prevent hot spots if you clamp down on very hot brakes.



Your new rotors are probably not worth turning, but you might give it a try, then break in the new pads properly and avoid staying on your brakes at a stop after high speed driving.



...Rich
 
Well said rich



I've been told that having better quality brake pads such as the wagner pads will eat up your rotors if the are of low quality rotors
 
R1 Concepts makes the best looking rotors that actually perform well on these machines. With ceramic medium heat pads... These drilled and slotted rotors keep build up from the rotors, are cryogenic treated to eliminate stress cracks, and have stellar hub paint to eliminate rust in that area. I have had several vehicles and have never had warpage or cracks.
 
Arturo,

Yes, as the old saying goes.... "You get what you pay for". Most people will get by with the cheaper pads and rotors while just doing normal driving on the streets. However, if you drive more agressively, or drive faster or do a lot of high speed driving, the budget rotors and pads may not work for you.



...Rich
 
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