Tires are incredibly important, but if you don’t want to crash, you also need brakes. And that means more expensive is better, right? Gotta get ’em drilled, slotted and vented, just like your Waffle House hash browns. Wait, that’s scattered, smothered and covered. Anyway, if the internet has convinced you that you need to invest in better brakes, it’s important to know what the terms mean so you have a better idea of whether or not you’ll actually benefit from spending more money. And if it has to do with engineering, you know we’re going to turn to our friend Jason from Engineering Explained.
Are there newer videos we could recommend for those of you searching for the answer to this specific question? Sure. Probably. But the brake engineering hasn’t changed in the last nine years, even if Jason’s haircut and recording setup have. Plus, who doesn’t love a little nostalgia?
How each brake rotor is used
As Jason explains in the video, venting is generally pretty self-explanatory — by adding vents to disc brakes, you improve cooling. Meanwhile, drilled rotors have holes drilled into them, which both looks cool and promises better braking performance. Slotted brakes, on the other hand, are kind of like a more evolved version of drilled brakes and are often used in racing.
Especially if you have a performance car that’s going to see hard braking, vented brakes can definitely help because they’re designed to get heat out of the brake discs quickly. Vented discs with angled vanes are even better, since they pump out hot air even faster. It’s still important to get cooler air onto those brake discs, but turning your brakes into their own little cooling fan is still beneficial, which is why vented rotors are pretty common.
Is the upgrade worth it?
Drilled rotors, on the other hand, still look cool, but they were originally introduced to allow gas released by the compound used in brake pads to escape so it doesn’t hurt braking performance. Modern compounds don’t release nearly as much gas under braking, so that’s less of a problem these days, but those holes also introduce a higher risk of the rotors cracking. You’ll still see them on some modern performance cars, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need them on your personal car.
Slotted rotors offer some of the same benefits as drilled rotors, including giving any debris somewhere to go, but unlike drilled rotors, you actually still see them used in racing. You will, however, probably burn through your brake pads faster, so you may not want them on a daily commuter. Unless your daily commuter is a track-prepped Lotus Elise that you frequently race on the weekends. In which case, hell yeah, why not? You already win at being the coolest driver on the road, so go ahead and add those slotted rotors.