Basically I'm refering to the entire car as european, not specificall the brake rotors. When the Contour was first introduced it became common knowledge that the rotors needed to be replaced when the pads wore out, but things improved (I think part way through the 96 production). Ford claimed to have improved the materials for better rotor life with new part numbers for both the rotors and pads. It did help in that the newer ones seem to have a bit less rotor wear and longer pad life.
My 98 E0 SVT still has the original front brakes at 100,000 miles and it looks like they still have a lot of pad remaining. I miked the rotors when I replaced the tires a few weeks ago. They are close to minimum thickness so they will need replacing when the pads wear out. They were machined once under warranty at about 18,000 miles due to warpage. There is a very pronounced lip on the outside edge, what Volvo referred to as "dish" as in the edge of a dish. Showing that the rotors have worn much since they were machined. Just for reference though, a 100,000 miles on Contour brakes would be about like 30,000 miles on a Volvo.
Jim Johnson
98 SVT
Originally posted by barrywolf:
Jim,
Are you sure that our rotors are European spec? I thought only the SVTs get the Euro-sized rotors, and then only in the front. But I agree that about 50K miles is a decent lifetime for rotors.
