[josh16]

@jsblanch if you are getting the brakemotive kit check out CBI shipping. You can setup a PO box and it costs $5 USD to pickup the package. I've used it multiple times, my girlfriend lives in Mississauga and it usually takes an hour and 10 mins to go from her door to CBI including crossing the border

 

[josh16]

Wouldn't you still have to pay the import fees, though when you bring it back across the border? I've never been a fan of cross-border shopping, so I don't know the ins and outs. Also, I may have let my passport expire. Oops.

You have to pay tax on anything over $200. There's no duties because it's manufactured in the US. The kit is currently listed at $156 USD which is roughly $202. I doubt you'd pay taxes on it. Even then with 13% taxes you'd get it for $228 CAD that's a pretty hard price to beat

 

[josh16]

If I declared it, no, but it's still a hassle. Does Brakemotive offer free shipping in the US? That would really be the only thing that would make the difference in cost between doing this and having it shipped to my door significant enough to make me waste half a day driving to Niagara Falls and back (shipping alone would cost me about $40.00 to my door). And that's still assuming that this feat could be accomplished without either my wife or daughter tagging along and causing even more of my hard-earned loonies to end up south of the border.

Yes it's free shipping within the US. For me it's showing $29.65 USD shipping and import charges $31.68 USD. So total for shipping would be 61.33 USD or approx $78 CAD. When you factor in the CBI fee, gas, etc you're probably saving $50-60 picking it up.

My recommendation is to wait till you get an ebay coupon in your email. I seem to get a 15USD off $100 purchase about once a month. Then I would pull the trigger and drive over to get it. I've had the kit on my watchlist for a while and it dropped down to $130ish last fall

 

[josh16]

So I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, seeing what I can do about freeing up the rear brake pad. Man, do those things ever corrode. It wasn't too hard to get the driver's side pads off, since I had done so the other day, but the passenger side. Oh boy. Let's just say that I didn't know a rotor could flex that much trying to pry a brake pad out. The outer pad now has a small chip missing from the pad surface as a result. The inner pad... I really should have take a picture of that hot mess. It has a deep gouge in the pad surface because the rotor inexplicably has a ridge in the middle of the friction surface about 2mm wide. On top of that, about 5mm of the inner edge of the pad surface is completely chewed up, because apparently the ridge of rust on the rotor is harder than solid steel. Anyway, I was able to get them all out and I took my trusty Dremel to the ears on the pads. Other than the friction surface, almost everything is coated with about a millimeter of combined corrosion and baked-in crud. That's about how much I had to grind off to reach metal, at any rate.

I've done a bit of research (for the sake of comparison) to see what it would cost to buy brakes at retail locally. I now feel better about the price of the Brakemotive kit, even with the injurious exchange rates and either the cost of shipping them to my door or the inconvenience of driving to Niagara Falls and bringing them back across the border. Decent quality brakes for the Dart are both hard to find and expensive. I found Brembo pads and rotors on sale locally, and might have considered those... except that Brembo apparently doesn't make those parts for the Dart. If I'd gone that route, I could have even taken advantage of their free tool loaning service to borrow a rotor puller (corrosion is absolutely going to be a big issue for me in that regard). [INSERT BAD WORDS OF YOUR CHOICE HERE] Y'all Americans have no clue how good you have it with the cost of car parts.

Someone on Facebook installed the brembo rotors on their dart. 33S60221 is the part number for the front and 33S60222 is the rear. I believe they were listed for the Giulietta. They had previously had the brakemotive kit on their car and said the brembos were much better. Were you looking at the ones on sale at Canadian Tire?

My brakes are still good but I will probably be replacing them in the spring. Let me know if you get the brembos.

 

[josh16]

@jsblanch if you're painting the calipers I'd recommend getting G2 caliper paint. They sell it at garage16 in Mississauga it's more expensive than the caliper paint sold at Canadian tire ($70 vs $30) but I know people that have had it on for 5+ years and it looks brand new. I originally did mine with duplicolour from CT but it flaked and chipped after a year. Especially considering the time it takes to properly prep them I'd rather do it right the first time

 

[josh16]

Thanks for the heads-up! $30 did seem to be suspiciously cheap. I still haven't decided if I'm going to paint them. It's kind of a shame that Dodge put in so much effort making the Dart a sexy, visually-appealing car, and then opted to put ugly bare cast metal calipers and brackets on it.

Yes the duplicolour is crap. I got my first chip in it after 6 months. I prepped them a lot better this time. I got a wire brush attachment for my drill and took off all the old paint and cleaned it really well. Some people take the calipers and everything off the car but I found that taping everything off properly and then taking out the bolt to lift the caliper off worked really well