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I recently got a warranty replacement caliper from Autozone. It came already painted right out of the box. The previous ones I bought were just bare castings with no paint.The old one worked for about 15 years but the new one leaked right away.
I took it apart and found they painted the inside of the cylinder bores which made the seals leak. I may just convert it to o-ring pistons if the bores look good after getting the paint off.
Buyer beware
Not an American problem.
Autozone has all their calipers rebuilt in Mexico.
Cheap labor, cheap parts, **** quality. They have a severe failure rate.
Lone Star has the only remaining U.S. reman center.
Ironically, they say that DOT3 is the best paint remover around.
But still. It shouldn't have happened.
Our work force has become tens of thousands of substitute workers since the pandemic.
Employers can't find people willing to work. The ones that will work are worked to death due to staff shortages.
Employees are asked to do jobs out of their realm.
All this, results in quality control a step below Americas former glory.
I hope things get back to normal soon.
Last edited by HeadsU.P.; May 15, 2022 at 09:11 PM.
Not an American problem.
Autozone has all their calipers rebuilt in Mexico.
Cheap labor, cheap parts, **** quality. They have a severe failure rate.
Lone Star has the only remaining U.S. reman center.
I posted the same issue a few months back. Mine leaked before I even bled them! I tried to hone them to see if it would remove the paint but it didn't work out so good. At this point I was so sick of dealing with lousy rebuilds I just bought new o-ring calipers from CSSB.
Not an American problem.
Autozone has all their calipers rebuilt in Mexico.
Cheap labor, cheap parts, **** quality. They have a severe failure rate.
Lone Star has the only remaining U.S. reman center.
Yup I bought an alternator from them and it was painted, even the windings were painted silver. I thought it looked crappy and it failed pretty much immediately after install.
I took it back and asked them to pull out what they had. Thought they all had the same part number I picked the one that looked brand new, it’s windings were coated in that clear red plastic like the factory one it originally had. That one is still on the car 👍
On calipers I bought the correct original type from Corvette Paramedics in NJ. They’re not cheap at $200 each but they’re converted to stainless pistons and o-ringed. No issues now.
Yes they’re twice the price but we’re talking brakes here, do you really want to go cheap on brakes ?
Plus mg time is worth something, I really don’t want to go back into that anytime soon.
Not an American problem.
Autozone has all their calipers rebuilt in Mexico.
Cheap labor, cheap parts, **** quality. They have a severe failure rate.
Lone Star has the only remaining U.S. reman center.
and it should be mentioned AC DELCO themselves no longer sources much of its parts from US manufacturers.
I purchased an autozone caliper last week for my truck with no issues but those have the external boot around the piston so I cant really see what the piston walls look like. The caliper was painted with that same grey paint pictured above.
The caliper I bought for my vette from Advance auto, was nice. Its still rust free 9 years later so it was coated with some type of clear coating, It was sleeved with stainless walls and even had stainless steel pistons instead of the stock alloy ones that tend to corrode.
Last edited by augiedoggy; May 16, 2022 at 10:15 AM.
After cleaning some paint off the the bores you can tell they sandblasted them and didn't hone them. It has a very very rough surface that will never seal.
Returned it to the store and got another one it was the same way. Don't ever buy a caliper Autozone anymore.
Ironically, they say that DOT3 is the best paint remover around.
But still. It shouldn't have happened.
Our work force has become tens of thousands of substitute workers since the pandemic.
Employers can't find people willing to work. The ones that will work are worked to death due to staff shortages.
Employees are asked to do jobs out of their realm.
All this, results in quality control a step below Americas former glory.
I hope things get back to normal soon.
This is so true-it is pervasive throughout the auto parts industry. Family friend of ours is a mechanic and is having issues with bad water pumps - he put one on a car and it started leaking 2-3 days later. Basically he has to eat the labor and put another one in -if he can even get one. I hope I am wrong, but I don't see this getting better anytime soon...
I shouldn't get way off subject, but back in the early 80s I worked several years on an auto parts production line. My job was to load Chrysler differential housing on a conveyor to be paint dipped. I was pretty fast and could load one every 5 seconds. Then one day my line went down.
A foreman from another dept said I had to go run a machine I was not familiar with. It machined the area smooth where the diff cover & gasket would attach.
Could not get the hang of that machine. Maybe did one unit every 30 seconds. I ruined dozens of parts. Quality suffered.
I was a "substitute".
I shouldn't get way off subject, but back in the early 80s I worked several years on an auto parts production line. My job was to load Chrysler differential housing on a conveyor to be paint dipped. I was pretty fast and could load one every 5 seconds. Then one day my line went down.
A foreman from another dept said I had to go run a machine I was not familiar with. It machined the area smooth where the diff cover & gasket would attach.
Could not get the hang of that machine. Maybe did one unit every 30 seconds. I ruined dozens of parts. Quality suffered.
I was a "substitute".
I'm willing to bet theres a bit of that going on in a lot of manufacturing these days.
Thanks for the info. I returned the new ones (still in the box) that I just bought from Auto Zone. I am sure you saved some labor,money and Frustration.
kind of like the diff between Craftsman tools lifetime warranty and Snap-On's lifetime warranty. you are guaranteed to use the craftsman guarantee. guaranteed to not need the snap on guarantee.
what a joke ,,, problem after problem just when you have seen it all it start all over again
And I just bought two reman calipers from Oreillys a few days ago. After reading this thread, I went down there to inspect the things. Sure enough, the caliper was powder coated everywhere. Except the one caliper had had the paint dremeled out of the bore. DREMELED! The caliper mating surfaces where the two halves bolt together was also dremeled.
Sigh….not one single thing from this car was salvageable, and even after trying to rebuild what I had, and deciding to replace with a reman’d unit instead, Those things were just as F’d up as the cores I gave them.
It’s hard enough to get quality parts today, so buying junk from the modern auto parts stores is just asking for problems. We have Lonestar and CSSB…..use one of them, no matter the cost.
Autozone Brake caliper alert
. I may just convert it to o-ring pistons if the bores look good after getting the paint off.
