Centric Brake Disc
If disc brakes were human, they'd probably be complaining about their mutually-destructive relationship with brake pads. They'd whine about how the pads always cling to them whenever vehicles stop and how they always wear the pads out. Thankfully, disc brakes aren't human, but they still shudder and groan when they need to be replaced with new ones. We recently experienced this with our Jeep's brake discs so we know that these signs can be tiresome. We heard about the Centric brand and how they deliver "premium performance without the premium price tag" so we thought we'd give their rotors a spin. Would we buy these products again? Well, let's consider the facts first:
Centric premium brake disc features:
- plain-surfaced brake discs with a non-directional electro-coated finish
- vented construction
- original equipment replacement for the front rotors
- sold individually with a 90-day or 3,000-mile Centric limited warranty
Pros:
- The rotors were affordable and they arrived within a reasonable time, just three days.
- After we took them out of their packaging, we could see that they were of high quality and good workmanship. The finish was excellent and the rotors actually looked better than the OEM. They were heavy and we could see from between the vents that the interior had also been coated to help prevent oxidation.
- It took us about 20 minutes to install one of the new discs. We found the whole process to be quite easy.
- They performed much better than the stock rotors. There was an obvious improvement after the first week of driving around with the new ones. Stopping felt smoother and the discs stayed cooler with less brake fade and wobble.
Cons:
- We're a little sad that they aren't manufactured in the United States given that a lot of people here need jobs.
- There seems to be a little excess machining oil that we had to clean away with a brake cleaner before installing. We were concerned that the oil would eat away at the paint, but thankfully it didn't.
- During the first week that we had it installed, the brake discs felt a bit spongy. This eventually disappeared afterwards, but it had us a bit worried during that time.
The verdict:
Would we buy disc brakes from Centric again or would we avoid it like the plague? Well, the product isn't perfect thanks to the excess oil and the spongy feeling we had during breaking-in period. But, we do think it performed better than our Jeep's OEM rotors and we can truly see the quality work that went into the product at the reasonable price.
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