Car parts i will only buy from a reputable source and then a decent brand..

I'm sure there were cases recently of counterfiet brake shoes and pads coming from a certain online auction site.

Yes they're just lumps of steel, that's about the right price.

Disks are THE classic volume manufactured part.

Bought in the millions, design is often standardised over models in the range...which means costs per unit of R&D and tooling are minimised.

Manufacture is simple. A simple casting, machined on automated machinery, placed on a coveyor and auto packed. Minimal human intervention.

Sold by the thousand each week..

That's why disks for Fords and VW are cheap.

Simples.

Edited by madf on 28/02/2012 at 09:16

With the banning of asbestos brake pads, today's brake pads are often made from sintered metal and it seems that the way to make them work (and in my opinion they now work better than the old asbestos) is to class the discs as 'sacrificial'. We now have to accept that the disc and pads wear out together. I find I can get a set of matching discs and pads for my Fiesta for less than fifty quid on e-Bay, so there's no point me paying over £200 for Ford to change 'em! So I'm on Mintex 'Brake-in-a-Box' and I like them. I usually get just over 60k miles out of the Fiesta front brakes. Now done 150k miles and I fitted the Mintex set at 120k. Perhaps I have a slight leaning towards Mintex as I used to use M20 shoes and Minifin drums on my Minis all those years ago!