I need to change my brakes and rotors on a 2012 XJL
What is the best brand? Dealer ? Aftermarket powerstop? Any suggestions?

 

A lot depends on which brakes you have and what country you are in
The naturally aspirated 5.0 V8 version, the 3.0 V6 diesel version (not available in North America) and the 3.0 V6 petrol SC version all have 355 mm front and 326 mm rear while the 5.0 V8 SC version has 380 mm front and 376 mm rear.
Steer clear of a dealership they will charge you two or three or more times the price of perfectly good aftermarket rotors and they will only supply/fit the horribly dusty OEM pads.
Plenty of suppliers of after-market rotors either plain, drilled, slotted or drilled and slotted including Centric, R1 Concepts, EBC and Brakenetic.
From my experience the Power Stop Evolution ceramic brake pads are very good and so are the Akebono ceramics but both make them only for the 355 front / 326 rear combo, choices are much narrower for the 380 front / 376 rear brake pads especially if you want ceramic. A good place to search is Rock Auto, see here for example: https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...brake+pad,1684 (2012 5.0 NA as that is my best guess of what you have). Beware that Rock Auto are not good at showing the actual sizes of the pads eg 380 vs 355 and 376 vs 326.
Also the 380/376/355/326 rotors are identical across the whole Jag range XF, XK, XJ you name it so don't restrict your search to just XJ.
The front 380 and 355 pads are also the same across the range BUT the rear pads both 376 and 325 are not.

 

I've not been impressed with Jaguar OEM brake rotors & pads. My rotors rusted really badly almost from new - not the normal surface rust that you get on standing, but pits and badly pock-marked and grooved surface such that the pads were worn away prematurely.
At 25,000 miles the condition of all 4 rotors was so bad I needed to replace them, along with new pads of course. I used EBC rotors and their "redstuff" pads which are ceramic and low dust. It's early days yet (only around 1000 miles on the new rotors & pads), but they are performing really well and the discs show no sign of pitting. Time will tell of course how well they'll do in thel onger term.

 

Mrream, not trying to sound sarcastic or whatnot on this subject, but this is somewhat of a "each his own". It is like asking "what is the best color on a jag?". There are pros and cons for a lot of different things. Liike chrisjp mentions, The EBC series stuff is good stuff, it can get a little pricy, but then, look at what you are driving. Do you necessarily want the cheapest thing? Along those lines, EBC has the red, green, and yellow lines of products. Some are meant for quiet stopping, some for aggressive driving, some to be kind to the environment. As you can see, just from one manufacturer, you have a wide range of options. Now, multiply that by what others are going to offer.

The big thing is what OzXFR said, first, find out what size brakes are on your car. That will start limiting what you can and cannot use. The next question that I would say you need to answer is "how do I drive?" If you like to drive spiritedly, then ceramics are probably going to be your best bet. But, if you do a lot of highway miles, the downside to ceramics is that when the pads are cold, they do not necessarily grip the best and if you have some major happen in front of you on the highway, this means a longer stopping distance. Kinda like, if you know you are a spirited driver, the use of cross drilled-slotted rotors may be advisable. The benefits of using something like this is under hard braking, the pads can generate gases, lifting the pad off of the rotor (minimizing braking). The slots/holes give the gas a place to go and keep the pad in contact with the rotor more. Now, you normally only see this with cars that tend to be tracked or you have a place to really push the car to the limits. Normal daily driving, this is probably overkill. The downside to the cross drilled/slotted rotors is that they tend to also give a mild "whirring" sound when braking, especially when the brakes are cold. But, I had them on my X-Type and if I slammed on the brakes, nothing was staying on the seats unless it was belted in. I sometimes wondered if I was going to push the bumper into the road because the car braked that hard.

Granted, this leads to another issue that most never think of. Ok, you braked hard enough to avoid something, did the person behind you do the same thing? Having really aggressive brakes is a pro and a con in itself. Hate to see you get run over by some other vehicle because you could stop, but they couldn't.

If you are after just another set of rotors/pad and the braking of the car is adequate now, then stick with solid rotors and get yourself a nice pair of ceramic pads. Stick wtih a name brand and don't go with some knock off company. You do that, you can reasonably expect to get a quality product for not a lot of money. You go with say EBC, you can almost be guaranteed to get a good product, but, the price is going to reflect that. If it puts you at ease, I bought my pads and rotors off of E-bay. I went with a cross-drilled/slotted setup with ceramic pads. Had the setups in the past and they tend to fit what I like a little more. I will chance being run over to avoid the other DC drivers that brake for no reason.

 

Ok thanks this was very helpful

 

thanks for the info dude

 

thanks for the info, im in north america and have the 5.0 Im going for the drilled and slotted power stop evolution. I already have the brakes and just need to order rotors. the mechanic i went to said i shouldnt put them on this car. I wanted the opinion of you jaguar drivers.

 

I can't stress this enough - from Thermo above

"The downside to the cross drilled/slotted rotors is that they tend to also give a mild "whirring" sound when braking, especially when the brakes are cold."

I put drilled rotors on my X350 and would NEVER do that again. These cars are so quiet that the noise from the rotors was annoying, very annoying. Was like turning on a blender at every stop.

Your experience may be better than mine. I certainly hope so.

 

Are your pads ceramic as well? I have drilled and slotted rotors from R1concepts. I use their Optimum OEp pads which are not ceramic. They are dusty, but not noisy.