I bought three Akebono calipers from Ebay, but no luck with the fourth caliper. I need it shortly so I'm looking at my options to buy one new.

I found two different calipers from rockauto.com. One of them is made by Centric and it costs about 220€. Another one is made by A-1 Cardone and the price is 134€. By looking at the pictures the only difference I can see is that the Centric caliper comes with pads and it's powdercoated and stamped with Infiniti logos.

Since I'm going to powdercoat the caliper anyway and need more track capable pads I wonder if there is any reason I shouldn't go with the cheaper product made by Cardone?

Any opinions? Are the Infinity calipers that CZP and others are selling the ones made by Centric?

http://www.cardone.com/Products/Prod...=196233&p=rock

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/more...450&cc=1447765

 

From what I understand, the A-1 cardone units are a remanufacturing service, not a core-return thing. The Porsche guys had a discussion about this a couple years back, since they though they could score awesome calipers on the cheap and it didn't work the way they thought it did. They charge the core charge because it's how their system works, but you actually have to remove your calipers and send them in. You're not buying a physical unit.

You should contact Rockauto to confirm this before you make the purchase. It may be different for the cheaper calipers, but I know the higher end calipers are definitely a rebuild service, not a physical caliper. The Centric units are a physical caliper with a core charge, which is why they're more expensive.

 

That would make sense. I emailed them before posting but maybe I wasn't clear that I didn't want just a rebuild. Thanks for the help. I'll post after I get some info.

 

Got a quick response from Rockauto:

Thank you for your email. A-1 CARDONE Part # 196233 is a remanufactured caliper, but you do not need to send in your caliper to be rebuilt. They will have cores on hand that they can rebuild and send out to you. If you needed to send in your core to have it rebuild, we would label the part in our catalog as "Return & Rebuild" rather than "Remanufactured." I hope this information is helpful to you, and thanks for choosing RockAuto!

So I'll try the A-1 cardone product and let you now what I think.
It will take a couple of weeks to get here, but I'll snap some pics when I get it. If everything is as it should be this would be a bargain BBK!

 

The Porsche guys didn't find out that they were return and rebuild until they placed their order, but a1 may well have a few cores on hand for the Akebono calipers. They'll run out fast if people buy them like this without returning cores though. Good luck, I hope it works out better for you than it did for them.

 

I bought the Cardone 19-6233 a couple of weeks ago from ultrarev.com with no issues. fully rebuilt and blasted down to bare metal. 19-6232 is out of stock everywhere, but I'm patiently waiting. They will accept cores if you have them, but they aren't necessary in order buy one outright.

Seth

 

Mine just arrived. Just like you said. Blasted to bare metal and fully rebuilt. Caliper is a bit ruff in places but with some sanding and powdercoat I'll bet these will come out great! Couldn't be happier. Thanks Rockauto!

 

That's awesome. Glad it worked out. Makes me wonder if they have any PCCB calipers in stock that they have listed at like $150 each...