Brake rotor stress cracks in Charger rt's

[BacknBlack/RT]

Anybody had the problem of hairline stress crack in front brake rotors on their Charger RT? if so what did you do about it? the cheap fix to the expensive fix.

[dudeiwin86]

the expensive fix is to go aftermarket rotors, or even better, upgrade to brembos.... (which is not just the calipers.. you need new rotors and spindles...)

do NOT get after market drilled rotors.. i cracked my drilled rotors, so i replaced them with after market slotted rotors and feel much more comfortable.

the cheap fix?
goto the dealership, purchase 2 new front rotors--- 81 dollars a pop + tax.... so your looking at like 190 out the door, and install them yourself.

[Charger4Life]

the expensive fix is to go aftermarket rotors, or even better, upgrade to brembos.... (which is not just the calipers.. you need new rotors and spindles...)

do NOT get after market drilled rotors.. i cracked my drilled rotors, so i replaced them with after market slotted rotors and feel much more comfortable.

the cheap fix?
goto the dealership, purchase 2 new front rotors--- 81 dollars a pop + tax.... so your looking at like 190 out the door, and install them yourself.

Carquest has them for 40-50 bucks each if memory serves me. I put them on my brothers 300C and they been good so far. 20,000 miles to date.

[BacknBlack/RT]

Thanks man,
Already looking at aftermarkets but did not know anything about them having problems with the drilled ones. Is there a brand you suggest? Do you know why the drilled are succeptable to cracking?

the expensive fix is to go aftermarket rotors, or even better, upgrade to brembos.... (which is not just the calipers.. you need new rotors and spindles...)

do NOT get after market drilled rotors.. i cracked my drilled rotors, so i replaced them with after market slotted rotors and feel much more comfortable.

the cheap fix?
goto the dealership, purchase 2 new front rotors--- 81 dollars a pop + tax.... so your looking at like 190 out the door, and install them yourself.

[sinistersix]

the expensive fix is to go aftermarket rotors, or even better, upgrade to brembos.... (which is not just the calipers.. you need new rotors and spindles...)

do NOT get after market drilled rotors.. i cracked my drilled rotors, so i replaced them with after market slotted rotors and feel much more comfortable.

the cheap fix?
goto the dealership, purchase 2 new front rotors--- 81 dollars a pop + tax.... so your looking at like 190 out the door, and install them yourself.

i love the way the drilled look though. guess ill have to go slotted for peace of mind

[crhemi]

Isn't it more of a quality (brand) thing with the drilled rotors.

[dudeiwin86]

Isn't it more of a quality (brand) thing with the drilled rotors.

theres a reason that cars you see on road courses only have slotted brakes

drilled is fine on 95% of street cars tho... but a 4200 lb car tears them up... my front ones cracked badly thru the drills

i used R1 concepts and upgraded the pads to posiquiets.
dont get me wrong.. i LOVED my r1 concept rotors, much better than stock (no squeel no matter what.. as soon as i cracked my rotor, i put on OEM rotors the day of... squeeling came right back...)

the guy i worked with over at R1 concepts took really good care of me, he was upset to see that their Premium rotor line cracked and offered to replace at the cost of shipping (35 dollars). i requested slotted instead of slotted/drilled like i had previously, and paid the 35 and got them a little more than a week later.

i dont blame the manufacturer of these aftermarket rotors. fact is--- 4200 lbs is a torture to our front rotors, and putting holes in them doesnt help when you drive your car pretty hard like i do....

heres some pictures of the carnage





i would reccomend the R1 concept rotors to anyone, but advise against going drilled, they make a great product, but when applied to these cars, its tough for any drilled rotor to stand up to the stress.

he can get you a set of all new brake pads and front and rear rotors for about 410$ shipped to your doorstep. i suggest the slotted.

they will kill the brake shimmy(that was plaguing my car and the reason i went aftermarket) along with the horrible squeeling.

[mnunes]

Have you taken the slotted rotors out on the track yet? How are they holding up?

[dudeiwin86]

Have you taken the slotted rotors out on the track yet? How are they holding up?

have not. theyve only been on teh car about 2 weeks now.

i never tracked the drilled/slotted either... just "spirited" driving.

[sinistersix]

thats what i was wondering, was if oyu cracked them while at the track. Because the guy at R1 has said that he has sold hundreds of drilled and slotted kits and yours was the only one he saw crack, and I never read of anyone elses cracked. I just think the slotted ones look so plain...:(

[CDNChargerRT]

Do you know why the drilled are succeptable to cracking?

Take anything solid and then put holes in it!! You compromise the integritiy when you do that.

[Shelby]

There are long discussions of this in many threads.

The summary is the holes remove mass which means hotter disks. The holes do not really help cool the rotors.

The holes break the matrix of metal molecules, create a bunch of edges and create stress points.

If the rotors are anywhere near the limit before the holes they will fail with holes.

Porsche has holes in theirs but the "rotors are way oversized" so there are less issues (maybe none).

Slots are not as bad. Theory is in the old days pads would heat up and release gas which the slots would vent and clean the pad. Newer materials have already solved this problem.


The best answer is a vented disk with no slots or drilled holes if you want performance.

Matt Robertson beats the daylights out of his car (according to everything I have seen here) and he just went back to the heavy solid SRT disks.

If you want fancy looking disks the shiny ones with slots and drilled holes look really neat.

[MattRobertson]

As Shelby and others said, drilled rotors are less effective and more susceptible to damage by their very nature. The technical need for the benefits they once provided is long gone and its only about bling now.

I did indeed go to SRT rotors from the 2-piece, much-lighter Wilwood rotors - I believe the difference was 35 lbs vs. 15 lbs. I needed that extra 20 lbs of heat-sink. I was cracking slotted Wilwood rotors after one day on the track, both cryo'd and not cryo'd. The cryo'd ones cracked a little less, but they still cracked in one day... and that was one day when they were also being cooled by my new powered-air spindle ducts... so cryo'ing was probably a complete waste of money and the reduction was from the 300-degree downward bump that I get with the brake fans going.

The SRT rotors have been good for four days and will last five days for sure and maybe six. I will be running Thunder Hill and Laguna Seca within the next four weeks so ask me then.

BacknBlackR/T, the problem you are seeing is simply one of physics. These heavy cars are very stressful on brake rotors. The reason you are not seeing so many people trash rotors is because not so many people are driving hard. If you heat cycle the rotors by driving hard and slowing down hard, they will all crack without exception. Brand does not matter. The solution is to add metal mass, and alter the friction bias of your pads (more bias to the rear), which is what finally got my brake rotor temps and rotor wear under control. But it took two years of experiments, three sets of rotors and I don't know how many brake pad combos.

But before you go screwing around with brake bias -- not something you want to experiment with if you don't know what you getting into -- consider just replacing your rotors and calling it a day. Before I figured out the SRT rotor switch I bought a set of ultra-cheap plain rotors from R1... $50 each. The plan was to use them for a day and throw them away. I still have them in the original box if you want to buy em cheap.

Anyway... don't be shocked by the rotor wear. Its a sign you are driving the car and having fun with it :-)

[aries4life]

Don't feel bad... I destroyed my first set of rotors too.

[sinistersix]

Interesting, well I definately need new rotors. And I dont go to the track. So are you basically saying that if I am not tough on the car, then drilled/slotted will be fine, but if I track the car alot, to just get slotted or normal rotors, no drilled?