Aftermarket brake drums

Good afternoon.

The local Napa store quotes me $44 for a brake drum for my 1991 Accord.
The local Honda dealer quotes $114.

Any words of wisdom on whatever Napa is selling here?

(My favorite online Honda parts dealer quotes $65, but then there's the
shipping and the wait time.)

Thanks
-Mark

 

they might be ok. they might not. i've seen cheapo chinese stuff
crack, so beware.

 

Turns out, my local Napa store carries an "OEM-grade" drum for $65,
so I went with those. They're American-made, so hopefully they won't
crack the first time I press the brake pedal. :-o

-Mark

 

Yeah, NAPA often has 2-3 grades of parts for every budget. Get the
premium grade and you should be fine. That said, service-grade rotors
(Like Raybestos Red Box or Raymold) worked fine for me.

 

i'm fine with some of the after-market disks and drums, just don't buy
cheap chinese crap. they use crap iron, they don't know how to heat
treat, and they don't know about stress risers.

example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38636024@N00/2700630346/

vs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38636024@N00/2700630344/

 

I suspect that the Chinese foundries _do_ know their business.
Their business just happens to be meeting a market demand for
cheaper, crappy products. I'll bet my bottom dollar that castings
can be made less expensive by eliminating the fillets that prevent
stress cracking. Less-complex pattern making, perhaps?

 

absolutely not. the cost delta between the two mold patterns is zero.
zip. nada. absolutely nothing. and that doesn't account for crappy
steel that cracks outside of the stress riser zone! [i should post pics
of that for you too.]

seriously, if you see castings like that, any material, any application,
don't walk, /run/ away. the perpetrators need their orifices used for
teeming ladles.