Brake rotors on the 166

[rx156]

Good morning everyone,

I need to change the front rotors of the 3.0V6 166 and need some advice on whether use the original Brembo solid disc.
Does anyone have issues like warping on these disc?
A friend has suggested upgraded disc like the Tar-Ox as the originals are prone to warping. These cost almost twice as much.
Thanks for your time and input.

Cheers.

[Pascs]

I believe the discs are standard Alfa discs - unfortunately Brembo only supply the calipers to Alfa.

Tarox have a good reputation for quality and would be a worth while improvement especially if you go for the grooved discs.

The grooves are designed to clean the pad of any used pad material while you are braking resulting in better, more consistent braking and reduced hot spots on the disc. The down side of these grooves is slightly noisy braking when braking hard and possibly reduced pad life.

You should also replace the brake pads when fitting new discs and replace the brake fluid.

I've not used Tarox pads recently but I think there are a number of guys from Malaysia using Tarox stuff with good results.

Hi

I have always used ATE discs and pads when having to change them out. ATE make most of the "oem" brake parts for cars built on the continent, and in my experience they are around 50% cheaper than buying from the main dealer. So guess whos getting the mark up ??

With brake discs they all have to pass a certain standard anyway.
Tarox discs are great I had them on a Fiat 031 Abarth but they eat pads and dependent on what pads you use you will find that you will be cleaning your wheels a lot more !!

I have also seen discs for sale for the 166 3 litre on ebay, they were genuine parts and I think they went for £20 ish !!.

ATE are available through most car spares outlets if you have no luck and you decide to go that way I will get you a number.

Steve

Originally Posted by rx156

Good morning everyone





I need to change the front rotors of the 3.0V6 166 and need some advice on whether use the original Brembo solid disc.
Does anyone have issues like warping on these disc?
A friend has suggested upgraded disc like the Tar-Ox as the originals are prone to warping. These cost almost twice as much.
Thanks for your time and input.

Cheers.

[rx156]

I agree that Tar-Ox are great disc as I too had them on my 156, gave a reassuring rumbling drone when braking and was also good at track days.

I have decide to replace with Brembo's and Magnetti Marelli pads. Hopefully will have them by this weekend.
The main deciding factor was the price.The Tar-Ox was like 4X more.
The 166 is a big heavy car and disc warping was my main concern.
Thanks for your replies.

[HowardA]

I got grooved Red Dot discs & pads, because my original discs were warped & the dealer refused to change them under warranty (despite warping being a manufacturing defect in most cases).

Red dots were economically the best performance disc (AO sell them in the shop, but a few other places also do them), and were cheaper than using Alfa parts (although I think !!!!!!!!! do a cheap pair of standard discs)

I never had a problem with stopping power or brake fade with the standard discs, just vibration when hot. I don't get any fade now, the brakes are fantastic, great pedal feel and not too noisy even under long heavy braking.

Remember to declare to your insurance company of course

General consensus among most of AO is that Ferodo DS2500 (check by searching) pads are best of all.

[timharman]

Just had my 3.0L 166 (04 plate 18K miles) in the Alfa Dealer today to look at a pulsing retardation when braking like a pussy and steering wheel vibration when breaking hard at speed Plus a whirring noise from the near-side front proportional to road speed. He said he would contact Alfa to see about getting the Discs replaced under warranty. I’ll let you know about the outcome

[timharman]

Got the discs changed under warranty no problem (but had to pay for the (parts only) new pads) and hey what a fantastic thing it is to have brakes you can now really stand on with pleasure and feather without regret…. Just makes gunning that glorious V6 all the sweeter….. what a fantastic fast A road monster the 166 is. Only thing is the Dealer said that the good news was the disk warp was cured but there was also a problem with the front wheel bearings and a clutch judder (always thought the clutch was way under specified for the power and weight) They are changing the bearings at no cost but are quibbling over the clutch. Will start a new thread about the clutch to see if anybody else has had similar.

[HowardA]

Originally Posted by timharman

Got the discs changed under warranty no problem (but had to pay for the (parts only) new pads) and hey what a fantastic thing it is to have brakes you can now really stand on with pleasure and feather without regret…. Just makes gunning that glorious V6 all the sweeter….. what a fantastic fast A road monster the 166 is. Only thing is the Dealer said that the good news was the disk warp was cured but there was also a problem with the front wheel bearings and a clutch judder (always thought the clutch was way under specified for the power and weight) They are changing the bearings at no cost but are quibbling over the clutch. Will start a new thread about the clutch to see if anybody else has had similar.

Clutches on the 166 are a known problem on the mk1 - even to the point where they failed repeatedly on journo tests originally

I wonder whether the VDC helps the clutch die sooner than it should, as the VDC brakes most of the time rather than cutting engine power - must put added strain on the clutch