Do not buy Centric Caliper!

[lambition]

I just replaced one of front brake caliper with re-manufactured caliper from Centric.
It was cheap and many people on the web said they are good.

It looked it was painted in gray and looked very good when the part was new.

However, just a month later (with a little help from salt on the road) it is all rusted. I'm not talking about a little rust. Whole caliper assembly is rusted.
Even 6 year old OEM caliper did not have that much rust. (I'm sure it had some kind of coating on it)

Centric caliper did look like it was painted. What ever they used probably was not something that can withstand heat of caliper or maybe it was not paint in the first place.

Unless you will going to paint whole caliper as soon as you get it, or looking for rusted look, DO NOT BUY.

I just hope at least their piston and seals are better in quality, otherwise I will have to replace caliper again very soon.

[lambition]

I contacted Centric about this and here is what I found out.

Their 141 series caliper does not have permanent corrosion resistant coating.
It is just dipped into a solution to prevent corrosion during shelf life and this coating washes off with water.

Therefore, my caliper is now bare iron.

Their 142 series caliper has zinc coating to prevent corrosion. However, it only comes loaded with brake pads. At least at rockauto.com.

[DriDed]

You should have stuck with oem parts, it is either that or ebc rotors and pads, or stoptech.

Those are the only three choices I would go with on my Solara.

[stringbean]

You should have stuck with oem parts, it is either that or ebc rotors and pads, or stoptech.

Those are the only three choices I would go with on my Solara.

what about brembo blanks? a lil pricy but still a solid choice for rotors.

my local part store "Lordco" use's lower end stoptech blanks as their own branded rotors, decent price too!

definitely should get a oem calliper from a reliable source, and with a zinc coating, but you learn from your mistakes.

[lambition]

There was pretty large price difference between rebuild and new OEM Toyota caliper.
Since rebuilt caliper reuses OEM part (at least for the caliper it self), it thought it would not make much difference.
I just didn't think they would sand blast it to bare metal and decide not to paint it in anyway.

I am surprised they left it as bare metal.

I guess I will just try to sand/brush rust off and paint it once the weather warms up. If paint peels off, then it is time to change caliper again.