I just pulled the trigger on a pair of Brembo rotors. Napa wanted $138 a piece and online I have found quite a disparage of pricing. Cheapest on Ebay at $92 a pair.

Eventually I found them on Amazon for dirt cheap, cost me $72 for a pair.

Zimmerman, Ate and Brembo all do manufacture some of their rotors in China. Hopefully mine are manufactured in Italy.

China has such a bad rep but there are good factories there that do put out good quality.

The rotors are sold by Auto Barn(Amazon) and if I go on their site, Brembo's cost $71 so basically I am getting 2 for the price of 1.

Even the FCP Euro site sells them for $67 but can not guarantee where they are manufactured.

Anyways I am mating them with the Akebono Eur837 pads and I am sure I will be happy.

I am going to paint the calipers, my guess is black, car is black also, have toyed with the idea of red but I do not want it to look too cheesy. at least it will not be plastic snap on/glue.

Thoughts....

 

I decided that I am going to paint the rotors, Turquoise
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Probably will not do the hats on the new Brembo's, just the calipers and if it looks too cheesy/generic/whatever....I can always hit it with black on top.

No thoughts or suggestions anyone?

 

Silver would be a good choice for the calipers, black on the hub area of the disks would be cool. My car is a dark blue so I have given it a similar thought.

 

@mt6127
I thought about doing silver as well, turquoise is really calling me, always has been my favorite color. I am guessing I really will not be able to start until the weekend. Got the Brembo's from Amazon and the Akebono's from Ebay so I will have to wait for delivery.


My reason if I do do black is basically so they will disappear, won't really be too noticeable but better than the brownish color they are.


So since I have the wait I am able to contemplate what color I am going to do

Thanks for your response, hopefully others will chime in.

 

I bought the same Brembo rotors for my 2000 V40. Found them for $13.49 each (fronts) and $11.25 (rear) at swedishautoparts.com.

Also tried the Akebono pads but went back to the softer Volvo pads. My teenage daughter is driving this car and I thought the pedal effort was a bit high with the Akebono pads.

I have a full set of Akebono pads if anyone is interested. Rears never installed, a few miles on the fronts.

 

I saw their pricing before I bought mine but the reason I did not buy from them was shipping was $37.50. Also it did not state on their site that they were Brembo rotors, just had the part # that corresponds to OEM. Brembo's have three different part #'s for the S40 mainly 25517 but a couple of others one that ends in .10 and another .11 so I was not sure if they were Bosch/Beck Arnly/Meyle etc.

Despite being much cheaper on the rotors, shipping gets me almost the same and to be honest $13 dollars for a rotor for a Volvo seems a little scary to me.

 

Scary Brembo, made in eerie Italy. I don't remember what I paid for shipping.

 

That is a heck of a price! But how did you know they were going to be Brembo's, from the sweedishautoparts site, they do not list brand for those rotors and have an OEM part # that does not correspond with Brembo Or were you pleasantly surprised when Brembo's arrived, I have had that happen in other items, where they may be out of whatever and they upgrade and send better.

 

I emailed and asked IIRC. They must have a warehouse full of them.

 

I got half of the front brakes done, calipers and caliper bracket were seized up and took a little longer, plus sun goes down early nowadays. I figured I would just do the drivers side tomorrow.

Brembo rotors are from Italy and I went with teal on the calipers.

 

photo op :-)

 

Tomorrow for sure! BTW Meguiars wheel cleaner works really well.


Got some white Brembo caliper decals coming.

 

If I ever decide to paint calipers again, I will opt for a brush on.
After looking at the other pic, I see what I did wrong. The sun was going down so I kinda rushed it and got some of my paw prints on the calipers and had to hit it with a quick spray and did so with the pads in place. I think it looks better with the black backing on pad seen below, I will change the other back to black next week when I put on the decals.


On another note, I noticed the inside of the wheel which has probably never been cleaned, it was black. I sprayed on the Meguiars and it came out so clean, below is a picture of inside of wheel. You will see some tar BUT 98% of that is now gone since I went and got some tar remover. So I am going to have to do the other wheels, never thought of cleaning the insides before.

 

Pads and new rotors were installed on vehicle at 93,000 k and I have 137,000 on car now, bought it at 130,000 so I have only put on 7 k.


I know it depends on driving habits but does it not seem premature to be putting on new rotors again?

 

time up upgrade the wheels! I went with 16 inch OEM Gallacticas and put snows on the 15s...

 

I will be upgrading car before wheels.

Rotors in back are good and new pads in back at 130k, brand new rotors and pads up front at 137k and new tires all around at 137k. When I just put on new tires, I would have done wheels. I have no use for snow tires living in San Antonio.

I guess I could have gone with bigger wheels but the car has a very nice ride to it and feels sporty but yet a nice passenger feel as well.

It has new struts up front and shocks in rear, both were done at 130k.