The Xterra’s about due. I mean, it’s got 50k on the original discs and I replaced the original pads once last year with some cheapies because I didn’t feel like doing a real brake job yet.
But now I’ve got a caliper leaking brake fluid (two actually by the looks of it) so I might as well pay the piper while I’ve got the wrenches out.
So I need pads and rotors all the way around. I could spend anywhere from $215 on autozone’s cheapest crap to $450 for EBC rotors and Greenstuff pads. The sky’s the limit from there, though I don’t see a point in going beyond that for a DD Xterra that sometimes tows a 3k pound boat.
Are any of the cheaper-than-EBC parts store “premium” parts worth a damn? Are the EBC parts worth a damn?
I would get some napa pads and rotors. They seem to get good reviews. My brake pads seem to take a beating with the boat in tow, so you might want to consider getting the “better” ceramic napa pads or something. Either that, or maybe get the EBC pads that are made for high heat.
rockauto.com if you have time to wait a few days for parts… otherwise print up the full price tag after shipping + the 5% discount code you can find anywhere online. Take in into autozone and they’ll price match so the same product and/or quality of parts you chose.
I have napa ultra premium pads and rotors on my '06 grand cherokee. I tow quads, sleds and miscellaneous stuff. Roughly 15,000 miles since installed, no pulsating, haven’t noticed much fade. Good bite and smooth. If you figure in the weight of the truck plus the trailer and what ever you are towing it can be a lot of weight. The dealer installed the cheapest stuff available when I bought it used. With in a few months I had “warped rotors”
With brakes its worth the money to get good parts.
The only thing EBC does right is marketing, otherwise EBC pads are garbage. If you want a “real” premium pad get Carbotechs or Hawks. Or get a “heavy duty” pad off of rockauto.
I’ve got the Napa Mid-level Ceramics and mid-level discs on my '04 JGC. They work great; very little fade, excellent stopping distance; and held up very well to a 2000 mile trip towing a '11 Cruze (full of stuff) on a tow dolly across the country.
What ever NAPA’s better option is if it can’t. I’ll never put another brake product from autozone on one of my vehicles after all the problems I had with the Prizm brakes and taking the “if you’re not racing it just get the cheap stuff” advice.
Our boats are really similar so I’m guessing your trailer doesn’t have brakes either. If so, don’t cheap out on brakes.
I put the same on my wife’s 05 liberty, but we’re only 500 miles in.
I thought the price was pretty reasonable, and they had pretty good reviews on a few jeep/LT sites.
I generally keep my cars for a while (translation: go through multiple sets of brakes on a vehicle). Sure the Autozone ones aren’t the greatest, but I get the lifetime warranty ones and end up getting free new sets when I burn through them. Doing a front brake job on all the Blazer’s I’ve owned over the years takes slightly longer than changing the oil, so I don’t get that upset if I have to do it every 2 years.
This might not be much help, but I think my EBC reds work great. Combined with the PowerSlots I definitely have a lot more braking power. I’m obviously not talking about brakes on a truck that tows though.
x2 on the EBC reds. You could also get the performance friction pads from fleetpride. They are a carbon metallic pad. They work awesome (we even use them on the class 4-6 trucks that we get at work) For a truck that has a gvw of 25,000 lbs, the pads arent much larger than whats on my car…
