[germanwhip]

Looking to replace my rotors. Oem ones are costing:

Front discs pair £257.62
Rear discs pair £158.60

Any after market options that could come in a bit cheaper at similar performance? Just replaced my water pump and need 2 front tyres so budget is being stretched.

Thanks!

[germanwhip]

Forgot to mention. E92 335i. Stoptech OEM rotors are 300 for front and back or the upgraded ones are same price as stock?

[umut335i]

Just replaced my stock with EBC dimpled and grooved + yellow stuff pads.

Other options i was recommended was zimmermann discs + yellow stuff pads

Mtec discs + Akebono pads

Zimmermann discs + Akebono pads

If you want to stick to oem try Leebmann24.de (very cheap) say youre from the forum and you get further discount ontop of the already cheap price.

[Aragorn30d]

Just buy disks from a motorfactors. Unless you want it to look fancy it really doesnt matter what you buy, there will be no performance difference. Just stick to the decent brands like ATE, Textar, Mintex, Ferodo etc.

I did my brakes recently on my 330d, bought all the bits from Jason at All German, Jurid Pads and Febi disks. The whole lot came to just over 200quid. Your 335i bits might be slightly dearer (front disks are larger), but not by much.

[djgandy]

Originally Posted by Aragorn30d

Just buy disks from a motorfactors. Unless you want it to look fancy it really doesnt matter what you buy, there will be no performance difference. Just stick to the decent brands like ATE, Textar, Mintex, Ferodo etc.

I did my brakes recently on my 330d, bought all the bits from Jason at All German, Jurid Pads and Febi disks. The whole lot came to just over 200quid. Your 335i bits might be slightly dearer (front disks are larger), but not by much.

You can get a full set of front disks and pads sensor for £270 delivered from Leebman.

And old grey steve has plenty to say about the lottery of non OEM. Not worth the risk of going other brands when you can get OEM that cheap.

[Aragorn30d]

Well its still more than twice the price and BMW dont manufacture brake parts so theres no point paying a premium for something you can buy elsewhere.

Stick to decent brands and you wont have an issue.

[djgandy]

Originally Posted by Aragorn30d

Well its still more than twice the price and BMW dont manufacture brake parts so theres no point paying a premium for something you can buy elsewhere.

Stick to decent brands and you wont have an issue.

Many brands have to offer cheap parts these days though to compete on sites such as ECP, so quality will suffer.

Most people do buy "decent" brands and still have problems. In fact most brands belong to a set of few companies anyway.

I could have gone for Bosch pads and discs for parts cost of around £180, but I opted for BMW genuine for £90 extra on the advice of old grey steve who has seen many issues with non OEM products. You don't have to look past this forum either, there are threads all the time about brake squal, warping, poor wear etc, and they aren't from people running OEM stuff.

The 348's on the 335i are pretty hefty discs and there is only a single piston. That makes for a large force in an uneven area. Many discs may be the right size, but I doubt they top structural quality, given the price some of them sell for.

I'm sure there are good alternatives out there, but finding them is a lottery, and just picking a brand doesn't guarantee quality as many know from picking Pagid. By all means, if you have found a good set, post links and product id's so others can try in the future and avoid buying the likes of what ECP stock.

[Aragorn30d]

I've always used motorfactors disks and never had an issue. The reality is, warping is usually down to bad driving habits like holding the brakes on while stationary, which causes uneven pad deposits to form on the disk. I've used disks from Mintex, Febi, Meyle, Delphi, Brakeworld and Apec (and probably others) over the years, and never warped a disk.

I tend to buy decent pads, currently running Jurid on the E90, and i've favoured Ferodo on the previous car, because i've found that cheaper pads tend to go a bit wooden after a while. But the cost difference isnt huge so its not a huge issue.

Stick to the OEM brands and you really wont have any issues. I know you are quoting Steve, but consider that 99% of garages around the country will buy standard parts from the motorfactors and fit them to whatever comes thru the door. If the stuff was as bad as you think it is, every car over about 5 years old would be driving around with squealing warped brakes.

[djgandy]

Originally Posted by Aragorn30d

If the stuff was as bad as you think it is, every car over about 5 years old would be driving around with squealing warped brakes.

If that's the case, then it is that bad. All I hear on the roads is squealing brakes, it's astonishing how many cars have brake squeal, and not particularly old ones at that.

If you read some of the brake threads you'll see that people have had issues after just 1000 miles with the cheaper discs and pads. Nothing to do with pad deposits and the like, just poor quality parts not suited to the application. I don't think people in a 335 should be skimping on brakes for the sake of £100.

Anyway. OP looks like he's going for upgraded gear anyway so shouldn't have issues.

[old grey steve]

Brakes drive me nuts TBH, so any threads as Andys stated re brakes it does make you wonder, but when we fit genuine BMW parts for example we simply don't see/hear any issues, though not the sexist looking stuff around they do the job, they're functional and they work and for me that's all I want to hear.

With the aftermarket yes we get the odd issue for sure, take Pagid we've seen so many issues with the stuff that we've stopped installing it period. We used to get vibration squealing the lot when we examined the discs we'd see heat spots(blue to red in colour)or when vibration was noted high spots on the discs, we used to have the cars in strip clean the brakes as it was thought in the past that perhaps this was where the reported issue lies, only to find that actually there was more than adequate copper grease where it needed to be and the assemblies were clean, what we then used to go is replace the discs pads under the replacement parts warranty offered by the suppliers on,y to find in the past the customer reported the same or similar issues again, though the cars braked as required it's the noise/vibration issues that were driving them insane as a customer you lose confidence and as a supplier if a service we were of the same opinion. We had the same issue though to a lesser extent with Textar for instance.

We've used BOSCH items before and we've had reasonable success, Jurid as many of you may be aware are genuine suppliers of many BMW parts trouble us getting the matching pad/disc combo but again for aftermarket where used (and rarely so)we've seen reasonable results but we have seen glazing which may indicate pad compound may be a tad too harshwhere longevity is the overcasting objective

Some people only fit non genuine parts and report zero issues afterall the aftermarket would collapse if everyone had an issue wouldn't it, but we serve Joe public who can understand how to bed in a set of brakes to someone who hasn't a clue and thsts where things may well fall apart and you need a safety net.

So what to do? If you spend time analysing the reasons for warranty claims/reported noise and other issues re brakes it's when you look at who's supplied the products that you see a pattern. Your replacing stuff thst in theory you should not have to replace all for small but to the client important issues. So for the clients thst had aftermarket parts we simply asked them to pay the difference re parts costs we carried out the re fitting of genuine parts at no cost and this was proof that genuine seems to offer that extra line of security as once done customers who had issues reported no problems re noise at all. So fir us this is all the proof we needed.

There are other makes out there like Mintex, Ferodo which are all good IMO, ATE when you can get them again like Jurid are OEM supplier brands but I'm told pad material wise they differ from what BMW offer, the pads are made to their requirements. Though brand wise well respected the difference is something we are aware of.

So back in early 2014 I stopped even offering aftermarket brakes, only when challenged re price would it be wise to offer the aftermarket option, though I'd explain what we'd found and why I'd recommend genuine only therefore the best way forward for me was opting for BMW, Mercedes items, price wise genuine brakes can more than double the aftermarket option but many are less than 25-30% more than non genuine parts.

As we've explained the options and what we've found most if not all customers opt for genuine products aside from the 2 year warranty genuine parts offer it would seem customers simply don't want the grief and as a result we have seen a dramatic decline in brake related issues its a huge difference yet we still see the same numbers requiring brakes and that speaks volumes.

We are an EBC dealer we've fitted a few sets (less than 5 I'd say)with mixed results we usually get the cars back for a look, again when gutted the same process as fitting genuine brakes is applied yet you get these issues. Normally once we see the car if there's something not 100% we'd actually speak tomEBC technical re what we find. To get the measure of these brakes we need to fit more of them to get an understanding, mere fact thst they offer different pad materials means it could/may we'll be a lottery as to whether pad wise youvecselectedcthevroght pad to go with your discs to suit your driving, usually though as stated with a problem we look first to see what we are dealing with and then move on from there.

But as I said at the top brakes

[AWBimmer]

Just replaced mine with Akebono pads (virtually brake dust free thanks to being ceramic) and Zimmerman drilled rotors for £40 less than OEM stuff.

REALLY REALLY happy so far.

[mob17]

Have been using ebc yellowstuff pads on my car (this and previous set). And the slotted ultimax discs. Better braking performance than OEM, will be tracking the car this sunday, that will be the real test re performance.

[janskic]

good fluid + upgraded pads + standard rotors is all you will ever need unless you're planning regular track work. Fancy dimpled / drilled rotors are a waste of money and they just look fancy.