I went with Wagner pads and rotors both with lifetime warranties. The manager at the local Oreilly's said at one of the training seminars he recently attended they talked about rotors. He said the difference between the 1yr and lifetime rotors are that, in Wagner's instance (since that's what I was considering), they cast them larger than necessary and then heat them in a way afterward to cause them to warp as they would under hard usage. Then they turn them so they end up being the correct 'new' size. He said this way the rotors withstand warping longer in the future. The 1 yr rotors are just cast and shipped.

Also he said the 1 yr rotors are made in China (which he then said so is a lot of other things as well). But it's no surprise China doesn't have the best quality control. The lifetime rotors are not made in USA (some could be, he said they didn't cover every brand in existence), but Wagner uses factories in India and I think he said Korea, which have better standards and quality.

I can say too, that recently I went with Advance Auto store brand 1yr rotors for our Chrysler T&C which gets longer, easier drives, not stop and go at almost 500 stops a day delivering mail. They seem to be doing the job, but from a visual viewpoint, they had pits and blemishes in the metal that I did not see in the lifetime rotors. The Wagner rotors looked very, very good. New rotors, pads and I replaced the calipers. Man it looked good when I put on the wheels LOL

The rotors will likely not have to be turned unless I run the pads metal to metal (which I won't do) so they will wear down just from usage. So it seems I won't have to pay for rotors or pads again. Sounds crazy but they've done it for years on pads. A friend's dad went close to 6 years getting free pads from Autozone every year but then paid for a set again because he felt bad for AZ LOL