Thought I'd check up on the rep if anyone had experienced pros or cons of using these.

I used Duralast a lot on my daily and the "fleet" (I go take care of my folks' cars, too) and have had no complaints on any of various products they make.

Not that I need new calipers. The car has about 60k on it. But I want to get a set painted red to match my new FRCs and it's easier to have a second set to give out and then install than to leave the car out of service and up in the air for a week or two.

 

If your calipers are working fine, just purchase a quality caliper painting kit, clean the calipers up very well, take them loose from the bracket and paint them yourself. Not hard to do and can be painted and back on the car in about 4-6 hours (long enough to dry). I painted the ones on my C5 and recently my DD - looks great and in the case of my C5, has been on the caliper's for nearly six years and still looks great.

Just a suggestion to save some money.

 

I would not use Duralast ANYTHING.

A month ago I had a right front hub on my car start to go bad. Clostest place that could fix it to where I was at the time was a Firestone dealer. Had them put a hub on, all they could get was Duralast.

8 DAYS later, the brand new Duralast did this https://video-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hv...e0&oe=55C8E3DA

Only 8 days. Pitiful.

 

HOLY CRAP

 

I agree get a good paint kit like G2. Pull off wheels.Clean calipers. Paint. Let sit over night.

You could do the fronts one day and the rears another day if time is stressed

 

I wouldn't use duralast either... if you don't want to paint yours and you can afford to have the car down for a bit you can remove them and have them powdercoated or there are vendors that sell them already powdercoated and you send your old ones in for a core... or you could buy a used set for cheap and have them powdercoated then swap them out and sell your old ones... you have plenty of options, just need to see what works best for you

 

Again, another agreement like G2, clean and paint them, it's super easy to do.

If you insist on changing, don't fear Duralast. They regularly provide long or even lifetime warranty on their products and it's the only brand replacement part I will buy (as long as it's available). While that video might be scary, there are too many factors to determine that the Duralast part was to blame... I have been running Duralast on mine for the last 5 years without any problems at all.

Good luck, have fun painting

 

do they warranty the labor it takes to remove the part or what if you have to pay someone to do it?... and when was the last time you heard of a stock caliper failing??... there are very few over the counter parts that I will use on my own from chain auto parts stores unless I can't afford anything else but that is just me, everyone is entitled to do as they wish with their own car

 

What other factors would there be?

We took a brand new hub out of the box and mounted it on the car, taking time to properly torque the bolts and the caliper hardware. I drive the car 5 miles to work and 5miles back every day. The Duralast hub that came off the car was so loose I could hold the mount surface and rock the wheel mount surface with my bare hands.

I really really want to know what "other factors" are at work here.

It's great that a hub you bought 5 full years ago has held up. Happy for you. But I really want to know what "other factors" went into this hub lasting only 75 miles and would cause you to totally ignore the evidence of your own eyes and advise someone to ignore it out of hand.

As for the warranty? Make sure you don't throw away the boxes. If you do, and you try to return them in the Delco boxes that came in the hubs you bought to replace the junk Duralast hubs you will be DENIED and told "not our parts".

Great warranty, isn't it?

 

I recently installed a set of red caliper covers on my 2001 torch red convertible. Very easy to install once you remove the wheel. Maybe took an hour to complete all 4 wheels. They are sold by several of our forum vendors for somewhere north of a $100.00.. Going the paint route is much less expensive, but the covers look great! You might want to check them out.

 

i am glad you like them but i would never ever put those plastic parts on a brake caliper to much extra heat and dust build up to cause brake's to fail when compared to not running them..just my two cents

 

just wait for the day that someone comes out with rotor covers that way you can have a complete big brake kit

 

Video not working.


The "Autozone Police" must be on patrol.....

 

I put it on youtube.

 

If we all ignore every part that has ever broken on someone ridiculously soon we would all be walking... Skim around google and youtube and almost everyone has had some factory defect part break on them and swear that all of them are junk.

I'm not trying to convince you to use Duralast parts, if anything buy another brand you trust, even if it's for peace of mind. All I was trying to get at was that you shouldn't shy away from a brand (if you like it) because of a faulty part you got.

Regarding these "other factors" I must have missed the part in the original post where it was stated that it was properly torqued down to spec, greased adequately, road tested to apply a good amount of strain on the part etc... Also, I apologize but there are a lot of C5 owners out there that drive their car oblivious to the needs of the vehicle itself, and even the road its driven on; not saying you are one of those drivers, but how would I know?

This all said, that doesn't excuse the part breaking and that is the down side to having to do maintenance while away from home. My personal opinion is that the Firestone tech messed everything up, because everything Firestone I have ever had has broken down ridiculously fast just like their tires

As noted before... something ridiculous can be found with any mass produced item there is, doesn't make the whole brand terrible. If I needed a tire and Firestone fit my budget I would still pick them any time. As for shop's, I just have terrible luck so now I do the work myself.

 

That was a very gracious answer. Well done sir.

 

I don't think they are plastic caliper covers. They sure don't look or feel or sound like plastic. They were advertised as aluminum powder coated with corvette engraved script. But, they might still be a problem when exposed to extreme heat.. I didn't thing about that when I installed them. I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for the heads-up...

 

"Dura Last" is a crap shoot. Roll the dice.............