I purchased two front brake rotors from Rockauto for my 1996 Maxima. Ordered Centric C-Tek, inexpensive non-coated rotors.
What I received doesn't look anything like what I ordered. One was a plain brown box with no brand marking whatsoever (could very well be C-Tek), and the other was a severely repackaged off-brand I've never heard of.
I fully understand that Centric C-Tek is likely cheap Chinese goods with a brand name attached, as are most inexpensive rotors these days. And brake rotors after all are just a hunk of metal for a pad to bite onto. My concern is the different brands could have dissimilar wear, different metallurgy / quality, who knows.
My last experience with using two different rotors didn't go well-- on a closeout purchase from RA, I ordered two Wagner rotors (for same car). One came in Wagner branded, the other was clearly different-- different anti-rust coating and no branding on the box. I didn't contest this as they were closeout products, and I thought perhaps Wagner changed suppliers and didn't brand the box. Low and behold the non branded rotor (on driver's side) developed a warp only a few thousand miles after installation. Could be coincidence or just luck of the draw, but sort of soured me on using different rotors on same axle.
But I consider this really dishonest of RA, to send whatever they had on the shelf that fit my car. What would you guys do in this situation?
RA customer service is abhorrent and it will probably take a couple hours of my time to get this returned without having to pay for return shipping, if they even do it at all. I'm probably going to make the initial effort and if they don't comply, just initiate a chargeback on my credit card. I think the photo evidence is in my favor that they didn't ship what I purchased. If this was a closeout item, I wouldn't be writing this post and would have accepted what came to me. But I paid full price for a certain product and believe that's what I should have received.
Curious what you all think, thanks in advance.
What I received doesn't look anything like what I ordered. One was a plain brown box with no brand marking whatsoever (could very well be C-Tek), and the other was a severely repackaged off-brand I've never heard of.
I fully understand that Centric C-Tek is likely cheap Chinese goods with a brand name attached, as are most inexpensive rotors these days. And brake rotors after all are just a hunk of metal for a pad to bite onto. My concern is the different brands could have dissimilar wear, different metallurgy / quality, who knows.
My last experience with using two different rotors didn't go well-- on a closeout purchase from RA, I ordered two Wagner rotors (for same car). One came in Wagner branded, the other was clearly different-- different anti-rust coating and no branding on the box. I didn't contest this as they were closeout products, and I thought perhaps Wagner changed suppliers and didn't brand the box. Low and behold the non branded rotor (on driver's side) developed a warp only a few thousand miles after installation. Could be coincidence or just luck of the draw, but sort of soured me on using different rotors on same axle.
But I consider this really dishonest of RA, to send whatever they had on the shelf that fit my car. What would you guys do in this situation?
RA customer service is abhorrent and it will probably take a couple hours of my time to get this returned without having to pay for return shipping, if they even do it at all. I'm probably going to make the initial effort and if they don't comply, just initiate a chargeback on my credit card. I think the photo evidence is in my favor that they didn't ship what I purchased. If this was a closeout item, I wouldn't be writing this post and would have accepted what came to me. But I paid full price for a certain product and believe that's what I should have received.
Curious what you all think, thanks in advance.