It's all about Quality, not brand purity
 

A lesson learned on the Marktplatz

Late 1967 found me standing at the counter of a small laundry in the center of the darling Bavarian town of Bad Kissingen. I was a second lieutenant in the US Army and the laundry had beed doing a stellar job starching my fatigue uniforms for the last 6 months. I now wanted a white cotton terry cloth bath robe dyed dark red, the rationale, it would not readily show coffee and food stains and require washing as often.

The laundry did commercial dying, and the owner looked at the garment, looked at the label, looked at me and said "Nein!"

Suspecting some sort of language barrier, I came back with my German girlfriend. Two or three sentences later she turned to me and said "he says no, he can not guarantee color fastness and over time the garment will fade and look bad." I said, "When that happens I will throw it out and go buy a new one. I simply do not care!"

The GF looked at the owner, he rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders making a gesture that years later would be known as WTF, and softly repeated Nein!"

The GF looked at me smiling and said, "thats the point….He does Care!"

ka-ching! Lesson Learned,
Dick Casey

I have a set of front rotors, brake pads and sensor for sale for 2007 - 2010 e70 X5 4.8i (pre LCI). Asking $300 or BO.

Completely incorrect. There's a reason my M6 and other high performance cars use drilled rotors.

Do the pads/rotors yourself. It's an easy task. You'll get more satisfaction in ownership if you do simple things like this yourself.

Cross drilled AND slotted rotors, for car that are no SPECIFICALLY designed for such (and as I recall there is only one car made that has such rotors :thumbup:) are for ricers. Slots and holes do the same thing.

Drilled rotors (my turbo has them) look cool, and do work- but the price you pay with reduced life for track duty just make them uneconomical and unnecessary. You get the same service with slots, for 99.9% of the pop.

Taking a car with solid rotors, and putting holes in them, does NOT improve the brake performance unless you are racing. You get less mass (weight) but lose swept area and thermal mass. Those are trade OFFs....The only benefit it avoiding outgassing of the pads at super high speeds and aggressive braking. And you can get that with slots too.

Its like nitrogen in tires: people take the smallest truth (race cars use it, they go fast) and expand it into a universal truth.

Because fast cars have brake systems with holes in rotors does NOT mean putting holes in rotors improves YOUR brake system. (Lets leave out the fact that drilled rotors have become a design element that may in fact be one reason they put it on the M6)

So when I see someone with drilled rotors on an otherwise stock sedan, I dont necessarily think 'ricer'... uneducated comes to mind as well.

So back to the original question. Has anyone used brakes plus or any other corporate place for brakes and rotors? Outside of BMW of course.