98 V70 Cardone front calipers - review

[PeteB]

I might just return these and rebuild, I don't feel safe with the Cardone's.
The FRONT brakes have worked fine on this car - always.
I'll stop in at FCP and see what they think about them.

Fun to watch opinion careen all over the place ... I'm not sure if this is a joke or what. You don't feel safe with them?

Note that FCP sells only two brands of caliper for the P80: Genuine Volvo and Cardone. I don't think they are going to tell you the Cardones are unsafe.

Oh I get it now, CARDONEs (Certain And Ravaged Death On Nearly Every stop) !!!

So I should just throw these on the car and hope for the best because most people
say they are a good enough company? With there being so much slop that I expect
the slide pins to sheer off at a hard stop.
I don't want to rebuild the rebuilds which seems to be the best way to go if forced
to use them.

[abscate]

Pete - I think you got a bad part rather than a bad brand. My Cardone fit tight and all was well with them, both front and rear

[PeteB]

Sorry, I should have put them side by side before posting, I did a rough measurement on
the old and they both have about the same play. I don't ever recall seeing so much but
I probably noticed it with them on the car so they hit things before moving too far.
The guide pins looked identical in size, but the original pins looked harder, the new
ones looked more like white metal (they are not cheap white metal but look different
from the originals) so I swapped them. There was thread locker so I also used some.
Electric impact wrench made it all easy.
I have ATE caliper grease to lube the old pins that looked in perfect condition.

We are in the Northeast and CT is no where near as bad as MA as far as salt etc. goes,
even so, half of the original bleed screw hex was completely rusted away - mind boggling.
Wish there were stainless bleed screws.

So far the Cardones are looking okay, again sorry for posting too quickly.

[abscate]

Who had the pot metal caliper slides recently? Those looked horrible. I have some old slides somewhere - I had better keep track of them.

[PeteB]

Mine looked like "white metal" (is that the same as pot?) but I don't think they actually were.

I took a closer look and the braking force goes from the pad to the caliper bracket,
not the pins as I thought previously. All the caliper does is apply clamping force,
the braking force goes from the pad to the bracket - never noticed this before.
So it doesn't seem that the pins take any of the braking force.

[abscate]

The pins take a lot of shear, because the wheel is trying pull the calipers off the bracket whenever you break, so the pins have to be strong

That white metal pin picture sure looked like bad pot metal - incredible. OEM is very heavy ground, high quality steel

[WhatAmIDoing]

Just finished putting new Cardone coated calipers on the front of my S70. The pins were stainless steel 7mm allens and looked OE, the dust boots and caps looked OE, and the bleeder screw was 11mm just like the old one. The locking spring clip was very strong stainless steel (almost impossible to put on), and in all, all the hardware looked and felt OE. My only complaints are that the calipers were drenched in some kind of really slippery oil/grease despite having a weather-proof coating, the slides/pins were cranked into the bracket with locktight, the pins were (over)coated heavily in some sort of clear/white grease and I had to clean some of it off, and lastly the weather proof coating is extremely easy to scratch/rub off (and I'm sure all the brake fluid didn't help). I'm only really mad about that last complaint, but other than that, I feel they are a solid value for rebuilds. Unless you really care, i recommended saving a few bucks and buying the non-coated ones and painting them yourself.

[PeteB]

I read that the caliper bracket bolts are one time use, is that true?
I'll have to pick them up at the dealer today if so.

[abscate]

My 1999 calls for new caliper mounting bolts, torque is 100 Nm

I can share I have never replaced these over 3-4 brake jobs/removals, as that torque is not torque to yield for that size/grade bolt.

MFG spec - replace


My spec - reuse and monitor

An intermediate strategy might be torque to spec, then mark hex with sharpie to monitor for first 100, then 1000 miles.

On edit - Im going to waffle on this a bit. I think I remember at least one of the kits came with new bolts

[PeteB]

Went to the dealer, parts guy says the 8 bolts are about $50 and they are not in stock.
I mentioned that the manual calls for new bolts.
He says, I work on Volvo's all the time and never change them, don't worry about it.

100 Nm is about 74 ft lbs, I read 77 somewhere going to go for 75 and call it good.