I was about to upgrade my stock brakes with slotted rotors, until the vendor told me that x-drilled is better as slotted tend to act like a razor blade on the pads, causing them to wear out very quickly.

What are your experiences with pad wear-and-tear with slotted or cross drilled rotors for everyday street use? Which pads are ideal?

(this isn't another "should I buy x-drilled or slotted rotor" post, but rather which cause least wear-and-tear and last longer overall)

Thanks!

BTW, anyone using Nismo brakes? Who sells them?

 

correct - slotted rotors are more harsh on pad life than xdrilled rotors.

 

Thanks!

Any other disadvantages of the slots? Any advantage?

 

slots - razor blade
drilled - cheese grater

they both increase wear on the pad

 

I've had my slotted rotors on for about 12k and haven't really noticed any increased pad wear. I went with Axxis Metal Masters though, so the more racing oriented pads may wear faster.
Brakes
-hype

 

For pad wear, I just got about 50,000 miles on my last set of Repco Metal Masters. Which is the same as the Axxis I believe. I do lotsa freeway driving so you can judge your pad wear from that.

 

Thanks for the number Jeff. I'll see how these pads go compared to yours. Hopefully I won't have to touch my brakes for a long time since I just put them on last summer. The Metal Masters seem to have a decent life for most Max owners, and now I can see how much the slotted rotors really do affect pad life. The only question I've never been able to answer is can/should you turn slotted rotors I always hand torque my lugs so hopefully I won't have any warping problems, but when the time comes I wasn't sure what to do about turning.
-hype

 

I don't know the rule on turning slotted rotors. I'll see what I can find.

 

Okay lets keep this in perspective, what kind of driving were those 50k miles? Someone driving midtown or downtown traffic will never see that kind of life out of their pads.

 

its sorta a trade off, you should get better braking with slotted just cause the SLOT wipes the entire pad(less gas between the two) while x-drilled only wipes across a portion of a pad, also reduces the capacity of heat the rotor can hold.

 

Dunno I think I read something about being on the freeway alot From there it's downtown driving. I do drive fairly aggresive but try not to abuse the brakes. Alot of it is how you drive. If you rabbit start in bad traffic then slam on the brakes, of course pad life will suffer. It's a gen ref for him that's it.

 

Please explain this further, because the x-drilled rotors do allow for gas release over the whole pad the wholes are drilled for such. Also the cross drilled allow for quicker heat disipation(SP).

 

Man what happened to "this isn't another 'should I buy x-drilled or slotted rotor' post, but rather which cause least wear-and-tear and last longer overall"
-hype

 

slot will wipe the pad - reduces glazing and will wipe any water off the rotor/pad surface

cross drilling - relieves gasses built up between pad and rotor during extremely hard braking. it also will reduce glazing

 

I was warned about x-drilled cracking if you don't keep enough meat on your pads.

 

Any word on weither or not you can turn a slotted rotor...mine need it BADLY...adn i don't want to buy another set....

 

They may crack under racing conditions, not for commutor driving.

 

I don't get it, they were designed for race conditions.

 

Yes they are/were. But racers change their brake pads/rotors at every race or multiple times during a race. They forgo longevity for performance. Are you ready to make the same sacrifice? Also you can't turn drilled rotors.

Carbon fiber rotors are changing the way we look at brakes but it's out of the scope of this thread.

 

Jeff is correct but I highly doubt that my cross-drilled rotors(Stillen) are the same as racing rotors as far as the metal compound goes.

You do get increased braking power to the wheels and you really feel the brakes working when stopping from high speeds. Instead of fading, the brake pads seem to grab more as the heat builds up. Being that the holds in the rotor removes the gases from the pad and the surface of the rotor, glazing is reduced and contact is increased.

 

If they're not to thin, they can be resurfaced.

 

I think that x-drilled can be turned, My dad has had ro 911's on of them he just sold with 70k miles on it. and it glided to stops with feel of warping. His new one is pretty much the same, but it had better be for 200k.

 

Remember Porsche "drilled" rotors are not drilled at all. The holes in their rotors are CAST in from the factory. Off hand I would not turn rotors on such a nice machine anyway but anyhoo....

 

Ok I just got off the phone with him, I had to ask. He has never had them turned, he said that he had them replaced when the car had about 60k it because his G/F drove the car with the hand brake not fully disengaged. So he replaced the whole set. my bad. I didn;t know they were cast with whole in them.

 

Quite a few people have emailed me questions re: drilling, slotting, direction, etc... Have some fun reading...

AP Racing

BREMBO

PDF file on direction

BAER RACING

ENJOY!

BTW... resurfacing drilled/slotted rotors are possible but keep in mind that it is extremely hard (destructive) on the cutting bit on the lathe and also that you lose the chamfer on the holes that minimize chances of stress cracks forming on the rotors.

 

x-drilled are a waste of money unless you want the looks or you track you car often and want to pay the premium for the performance. If i had to get them i would go brembo since there rotors are dimpled inward to aviod that cheese grateing effect.

 

I assume that you have a factual reason why X-drilled are a waste of money? There aren't a lot of premium cars that come with slotted, but there are a lot that come with X-drilled. to do it over I would've went with a 2 piece big brake kit.

 

when u have a x-drilled rotor it will only sweep across the area of the pad where the holes are, as oppose to the slotted where it sweeps the entire pad ridding gasses more quickly.

Yes but cross drilling means removing metal that would have been there that would have retained heat would it have not been drilled.

Gain is minimal for regular driving

 

the wholes are 8 sets(brembo) of holes encompasing the rotor, thats like having 8 slots. I do disagree about minimal breaking gains, I went from brakes(new OEM) that would fade under hard braking, to brakes that will grab and hold from 120 to 0 like no ones business, then beable to do it again with no fade. i'm sure that the slotted are marginally better(more contact).

 

whoops, i ment gains are minimal over slotted rotors, srry if i wasnt clear.

 

Its cool, we are so off topic to the thread.

YES THERE IS A LEVEL OF RAZOR EFFECT WHEN USING A SLOTTED ROTOR.
there now that guy can go get some brakes

 

Thanks!

(Would it be asking too much if I asked how often I would have to replace the pads using slotted rotors, or x-drilled?)

Thanks for your replies!

Maybe I'll get X-Drilled for the front and Slotted for the rears!
(just joking!)

 

There's really no way to answer that question. Everyone can tell you their own experience, but there are so many pad/rotor combos that you probably won't learn a whole lot. Everyone also has different driving conditions Get what you can afford and want and go from there. My criteria was a brake job under $500 and the slotted rotors fit the bill at the time. If I could only have gotten cross drilled rotors that wouldn't have bothered me either.
-hype

 

drive pretty hard, and I'm on 12k miles with x-drilled and zxxis metal master brakes with about 60% left I think

 

That's the combo I used on my 300ZX..

 

Did you like it?

 

Would you really be able to tell a difference in the feel of the car?

SuDZ

 

No

 

it didn't make any noticeable difference since the front do ~ 70% of the braking. I did it to be different