I decided to go with Hart Platinum cross-drilled and slotted rotors and ceramic pads on Friday. The deciding factor was these rotors are mill-balanced and the price is incredible. All in the total was $285.00 shipped.

Drove around to 3 stores looking for a 9mm hex socket (of course my set skipped 9mm) and finally ordered one from Napa on Saturday, picked it up today.

Bought a can of high temp black spray paint to clean up the calipers and brackets/covers.

Spent 5 hours Sunday pulling the wheels, pressure washing and using Scrubbing pads cleaning off the old brake dust, washing the car and hand waxing the whole thing (my arms are killing me).

The Iridum Blue metallic is one of the prettiest colors in the sun.

Just got the shipping notice for the brakes and what struck me was the total shipping weight. 100 pounds for rotors and pads. That is by far the heaviest set I have ever worked with. I am glad the shipping was free with the purchase.

 

Just curious, where did you buy them?

 

U.S. Car Parts.

 

Installed them yesterday. Took about 5 hours because I painted the brackets and calipers black. (I will take a pic soon)

For the first 20 min of bedding them in they chattered badly at the stopping point but that went away.

As of right now, they look good and perform good. There was no fitment issues but I did break both wear sensors.

So, I have 2 top tips for you all.

#1 - Go on eBay and buy new front and rear sensors from m.g-parts from up in Milwalkee, WI. He advertises them for $18.99 with free shipping each or best offer. I offered him $15.00 each and he accepted it so for $30.00 it is not worth not replacing.

#2 - if you do break the sensors and get stuck like me without replacements for a week, cut the plugs off the old sensors leaving 3 inches of wire and short them together, tape them up, and plug them back in. It will fool the car into thinking everything is OK effectively bypassing them.

 

Just to finish up this thread, and keep all the info together on one post here is a few tips for attempting to remove the wear sensors without breaking them, and if you do break them, how to save a few dollars on parts.

Step one is to unplug the sensor cable on the body/frame before you start disassembling the caliper from the bracket and unclip all 3 rubber grommets so that the sensor is completely free to come out with the caliper and pads. Do not try and remove the sensor until you have the pad on the work bench, they are too brittle to try and hold the caliper and pads while trying to unclip them.

Removing the front sensor: the plastic sensor is very brittle, it fits into a grooved channel and must be pulled straight up in the direction of the wire. If you twist it, it will break. It will be caked with brake dust so it can be difficult to slide out.

Removing the rear sensor: you must pull the metal spring on the pad out with the sensor. Do not try and pull the sensor out without first removing the whole spring. It also slots in and cannot come out of the spring while still on the pad.

If you do break the sensors, don't worry too much, they are fairly cheap. I found a set for $30 shipped from an eBay seller (see previous post).

 

Nice! What size and brand rotors are those?

 

They are factory spec sizes from Hart brakes. The fronts are 355mm or 14" and rears are 326mm or 12.8".

Hart sells the rotors in 3 flavors, they are exactly the same except for the coating. You can choose from black, gold or platinum.

 

Can you provide a link to US Car Parts? I'm not having much luck looking for it.

 

888-801-2701. They are on the West coast and hours are 6-6.

To follow up now after I have broke them in. They are good but could be better. I really feel that the brake pads on the NA 5.0 are to "short" for slotted rotors.

Our calipers are a single piston and use a very stubby pad and I feel that due to the smaller pad, it has a very small pulsing at hard breaking as the rotor slides the slots past the leading edge of the pad.

It does not affect braking but does give a different pedal feel.

Other than that, the platinum rotors are still very shiny and look great.

 

Sorry, that number is for US Direct Parts for the rotors and pads I bought. Let me find the seller for the pad wear sensors.

 

Here is where I got the pad sensors on EBay.

m.g-parts on eBay

They still have them on eBay.

 

I was looking at parts on Genuine Jaguar OEM Factory Parts sold at Wholesale Prices | GaudinJaguarParts.com. I don't see wear indicators on the parts diagram for the 2011 XF Prem 5.0 N.A. Does anybody have any insight?