Hey Guys, its been awhile since I posted as unfortunately I replaced my 97 F-150 with an AWD car (13 Subaru). Before I retired it (and still have it of course) I was looking at putting some new brakes on my truck and the recommendation for pads and rotors seemed to be Hawk brand.

So I found out my wife was driving her 09 Taurus and the rear left brake has metal to metal touching so I'm looking to replace both of the rears (fronts are at about 80% life). Question is, what is good these days for brake pads and rotors for a car like this? Obviously not doing towing or racing like some with our F-150s, but I don't want to put NAPA bought crap on there if I could get something better.

The Ford dealer wanted $440 for parts and labor to replace the rears and I said screw that. I'll grab some quality parts and do it myself for less. Any advice of quality/better brakes that aren't ultra high end racing or hauling?

 

Centric Posi-Quiet ceramic pads and Centric Premium rotors. Rock Auto has them, look in the "daily driver" section. They may be relatively cheap but they are excellent quality. I have them on the front of my F-150 and they have over 100k miles on them (not a typo, I can't believe it either). Smooth, quiet, powerful, and no dust.

Rotor:

CENTRIC Part # 12061081
Premium
Rear
$33.99

Pads:

CENTRIC Part # 10510710
Posi-Quiet Ceramic w/Shims and hardware
Rear
$24.89

 

Sweet, thanks GLC, I ordered pads and rotors for the rears (the fronts are still at 80%!). I did a lot of reading about different rotor types, brands, ect. Seems like Centric is where it is at, the guys are huge. Also at $30 for a pair of pads, and $38 for a single rotor... it's hard to justify paying $120 for a set of pads for Hawk brand and around $150-160 for a rotor......

The dealer wanted $190 for parts alone and those were MotorCraft parts which aren't terrible, but they aren't particularly good from all of my experience with the Ford OE parts.

Thanks again, I'll let you know how it goes. Im going to be doing this without the special tool for the caliper that these vehicles have. Found a great video doing a change out for this exact year.

 

White box rotors on the back of the car, Ceramic pads. Don't need the break the bank on a car that does nothing but hwy/local driving! save your money unless you got it to burn, then go for it.

 

Borrow the tool from your auto parts store. a lot of them will let you pay, return and get your money back. its call loaning you the tool. a must for this job, I think you have to turn the piston back into the caliper!

 

The Centric premium rotors certainly don't break the bank and they are probably considerably better than white box.