That is if you change them without changing or resurfacing the rotors. I know you're an experienced, mechanical kind of guy, and I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But if a regular consumer took their car into the shop for a brake job, I understand the latest standard operating procedure is to toss the old pads and rotors. This is because rotors on most cars, including the D1/D2 are cheap. Even my wife's late model (non-AMG) Mercedes has inexpensive rotors. For the guy with Brembos on his Ferrari, the rotors are still cheap relative to his overall budget.

In the past, people would turn rotors on a lathe and resurface them as long as they still ended up within the width specification. The problem with shops turning rotors is simply too many customer come-backs. There's noise, a shudder in the wheel, a vibration, or whatever. It could be a defective job, or just a hard spot. But after a certain portion of your brake job customers are coming back and your mechanics are re-doing jobs, costing you hours at no additional cost to the customer, you learn to charge the customer for new rotors up front and be done with it. You get more happy customers, and more money. How many shops are going to be willing to save their customers a few bucks by trying to fix their old rotors? More and more of them are saying, "forget it." For the same reason, they're not likely to put new pads on worn rotors. You can probably get away with it most of the time, but if the customer is coming back and you're doing the job again at your own expense, you're not going to keep doing that. You'll advise the customer the first time, their cost for the job will include new rotors.

 

^This. Especially on a D1. You have to do the same amount of work to turn a rotor as you would replace with new. Once you get to the point of pulling the D1 rotor it's in your best interest cost and time-wise to just replace with new.

 

Rotors are cheap for the D1, relatively. Do I have to change the rotors though? They are the dimpled EBCs and I was told that EBC should be paired with EBC pads. Does it really matter?

 

Changing the rotors involves R&R of the wheel bearings.

 

Wheel bearings will last at least 60,000 to 300,000 miles depending on the type of service they see. If they fail before that, there was a defect in the bearing or the installation. Changing the rotors on the Rover axles is a good opportunity to re-pack the bearings, but it's usually not necessary to replace them or press out the races. Just add some compatible grease and you're good to go. You can check your bearings by trying to wiggle the tire while it's lifted and supported by the axle. If it wobbles, it could just be the hub nut is loose. If you've got over 150,000 miles on the bearings and they've not been changed, you should consider replacing them, especially if your miles are off-road, you have wheel spacers or wheels with less backspacing, oversize tires, or high weight.

 

Yep, i have never had to replace hub bearings in 22 years of RRC/D1 ownership, i'm on my 3rd set of front pads (original rotors) and 2nd set of rears and just about to replace rear rotors - this is over 9 1/2 years and 162,000Klms.

 

So I just replaced the pads with inexpensive Mintex so I guess i'll just keep replacing. I still think one of the calipers are dragging but I'm just going to leave it alone. At least now they aren't sqeaking.