Ebay cheap brake rotors and ceramic pads

I am shopping for rotors and ceramic pads for the 88 Saab 900 SPG. Ebay has them from a company called Power Stop for $125. I can afford this. so there must be some reason they are so inexpensive. Any experience with these?

No dog in this fight. Power Stop seems to be a real company, with a reasonably professional looking web page. Reviews on other forums regarding their products are all pretty good. Looks to me like you've nothing to inherently worry about.

I have had no good experiences with ceramic pads. Every time i would try them out, I would get zero braking when the pads were cold and/or wet. I got used to dragging the brakes for a while before actually needing them to slow the car down.

This being $60-80 parts store ceramic pads, not expensive ones.

I'm another that hasn't enjoyed any worthwhile level of success when using ceramic pads … YMMV

I used a complete brake job in a box (4 rotors with pads) from rock auto that was all powerstop. Hands down the best brakes I ever had on my cobalt SS. I thought the factory brakes were great then I put on the power stops WOW. Note: I replaced still good pads cause the rotors had rusted from sitting and I had long trip to do.

SPG123 wrote: I am shopping for rotors and ceramic pads for the 88 Saab 900 SPG. Ebay has them from a company called Power Stop for $125. I can afford this. so there must be some reason they are so inexpensive. Any experience with these?

Parts stores have an insane markup on most parts. When I worked for advance pads had a cost of $4 or so but we sold them for $20-$40. At most you have 2 or 3 competitors in a town so prices generally stay high.

The internet is way more cutthroat. Chances are there are 20 people on ebay selling that exact part. Usually the cheapest price sells so everyone cuts their price to stay competitive until they make very little and hope sales volume makes up for small profit margins.

Also, odds are if you're at a parts store you want the part now and they can charge accordingly.

i have them on the front of my truck. the quality is there in the rotor castings, much less flash than the parts store units and nicer machine work too.

i was skeptical but am sold. the stopping power is there, and i tow every day. they are wearing very well, low dust, and the zinc coating still looks new 8 months later. i killed parts store silver semi metallic pads in 2 weeks

the only reason i did not get them for the buick is that the powerstop kits cost about the same across the board no matter what you're buying for, so for vehicles that have dirt cheap parts the powerstop stuff costs more. but for my avalanche ceramic pads at the parts store are $68, so the whole kit with rotors and pads for $120 is a no brainer versus the valucrap bottom of the barrel rotors.

i'd buy them again and again until i get a reason not to. and FYI when i was looking for my truck i checked ebay, amazon, etc. turned out summit racing had them both beat on price.

I haven't heard anything bad about Power Stop brakes, but I haven't heard a whole lot about them in total...

$125 isn't super cheap either, about 2x the cost of non-hazardous street cheapos and more than a set of Axxis Ultimates.

Power Stop … good company … just don't like ceramic pads

I get most of my Saab stuff from Eeuroparts. They have a Brembo/Akebono kit for $180; you could get a pair of Bosch rotors and less expensive pads and match the Ebay price.
http://www.eeuroparts.com/Cars/SAAB/1053/1988-900-SPG-2-0L-4-Cyl-16-Valve-Turbo/4/Brakes/#frontbrakeshydraulics/1/

Powerstop drilled and slotted on my 02 F250 Crew Cab and 02 Corvette. No complaints! I get mine from Amazon.

Seems what little I hear of them is good, friend of mine runs them (the Z16/17 I believe) in his Subaru, likes them better than the Hawks he had on before.

You can't get like... Centric rotors and some Axxis Metal Masters or Stoptech pads for less than that?

Otherwise, yeah, they're legit.

In reply to Swank Force One:

I'm guessing this is either for 4 wheels or a fancy drilled slotted rotor package, the pads are $32 on rockauto at least for my Prizm, for the sport Z23 carbon fiber/ceramic pads, the Z17 standard ceramic is $22.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to Swank Force One: I'm guessing this is either for 4 wheels or a fancy drilled slotted rotor package, the pads are something like $24 an axle on rockauto last I checked.

Ah yeah I dunno. I do centrics and metal masters for around $110 last two times I ordered. Different car though.

Yea, but for the whole car? 4 rotors and two sets of pads?

This is a 4 rotor and two sets of pads kit he is talking about.

I used to use their kits on Swifts, they were awesome for autox.

HiTempguy wrote: Yea, but for the whole car? 4 rotors and two sets of pads? This is a 4 rotor and two sets of pads kit he is talking about. I used to use their kits on Swifts, they were awesome for autox.

Yes. Whole car. 4 rotors, two sets of pads.

NAPA !

I grabbed some rotors and ceramic pads from a cheap ebay company. They worked just fine. I was happy. I don't recall the company name.

Yes, 4 rotors and ceramic pads all around. I put ceramic pads on my DD 6 months ago. They were just ok for the first few days but perform very well now. And no more black wheels! The rotors that are on the 88 now may be originals and the pads are glazed to death, maybe from sitting for so many moons. A little DOT 4 transfusion and the car should be very happy.

Not my experience.

In reply to iadr:

It sounds like my NAPA. They act like they are doing my a favor selling me the wrong part.

Them and Brakemotive where pretty common on the 4th gen and Vette crowd. Not any complaints. I would not run ceramics though. When I was putting a ton of miles on the camaro I put on a set of decent parts house ceramics (Wagner), and it always stopped like E36 M3. Always though I was fighting a hydraulic problem, finally after changing almost all the parts, I bought some E36 M3 semi metallic pads (pepboys house brand) and 'it stopped SOOOO much better.

So from now on Im gonna run metallics, or some of the high end ceramics like akebono and Im sure most of the performance ceramics are fine, no more cheapy ceramics