I prefer the slip on rotors as well. If you ruin a rotor, you don't have to replace the whole hub... I usually carry a spare rotor and hub, as well as spindle, bearings, seals, grease, etc with me. And I've had to use them more than once in the past.Always carry a temp gun with me as well and periodically check the temps of the wheel bearings and that area.
I use kodiak 225 disc brakes and only seem to get about a season and a half, maybe 2 max, generally before I have to replace the pads. (on a triple axle trailer with brakes on each axle) The pads are the same as what are used on the pontiac sunfire so they are designed to stop a small car and not alot of disc pad surface area to rely on therefore they wear out fairly quickly. If I were going to replace the system I would go up to their larger braking model.
I always try to rinse the brakes after pulling the boat out of the water... Haven't had a seized caliper yet but have had bad seals that seem to tear easily. I ussually coat the slider pins with neverseize as well. I recently ordered a bunch of spare seals and will be rebuilding some spare calipers this winter. Kodiak had a bad run of calipers about 2 years ago that had a weak casting. It was quite noticeable where they failed. They were good about replacing with the better more robust casting when questioned on it. They acknowledged the castings were thin in the area that broke... about half the thickness of the ones I was replacing with the same model number. Not sure how many people ended up with them but I had broken 2 on separate trips with less than 20 km's on them. a real pain in the @ss...
Anyway I was looking at costs on eTrailer and though it strange that it is cheaper to buy the entire kit (darcomet and stainless combo) rather than upgrading with two stainless calipers?
