Changing Front Rotors and Tone Ring

[mcaramb]

Another wonderful job by my idiot mechanic. He changed the front rotors on my 2001 and returned my car to me with the ABS light on. He said it was because I supplied him with aftermarket rotors which didn't have the indentations to tell the ABS system how fast the wheels were going.

So I've been driving around without ABS for months since then, thinking I was the idiot for buying aftermarket rotors and not noticing this. However, when I called the Isuzu dealership today about something else and mentioned this, the guy explained that the rotors have a removable part called a Tone Ring which you are supposed to remove and attach to your new rotors when you change them.

Nice. Very nice. So idiot boy basically snowballed me into thinking I screwed up, when actually he was the one that forgot to change out the tone ring and didn't wanna take it all down again once he discovered the ABS wasn't working.

So... my question now is, where do I buy front rotor "Tone Rings?" I'm gonna do it myself as obviously, I'm never going back to idiot central, and the Isuzu dealership is over 200 miles away.

-Mike

[WormGod]

Hmm, news to me. Never heard of a "tone ring". Though, I am no brake specialist either. Certainly worth looking into, especially since my VX ABS decided to crap out at the first sing of brake problems some time ago anyways.

I'll have to look more into this information. Good find.

[MSHardeman]

There is a "bumpy" ring on the back side of the rotor that is held on by three allen bolts. As the ring spins with the rotor it passes by a sensor that is stationary and counts the little bumps as they go by and tells the sensor if the wheel is spinning faster or slower than the others, or if it's locked up during a skid. The picture below is from when I replaced my rotors a couple of years ago. You can see the darker colored tone ring on the new rotor.

http://www.vehicross.info/gallery/data/500/Brake_Job_51.JPG

I'm guessing that you could get one from Merlin at St. Charles Isuzu, or maybe you could talk to one of the guys parting their VX's out to see if they still have the original rotors and could get the ring for you. Either way, I would go back to mechanic boy and either tear him a new one, or make him do the work for little to no cost.

[johnnyapollo]

Interesting - it's been a while since I changed mine out but I don't recall having to do anything with a "tone ring"...

[deermagnet]

I just checked the parts catalog and Isuzu calls it a rotor sensor. They want ~$180 each for those rings! #8-97018-425-1. They are shared with any '92+ Trooper if your local yard has any. Maybe ya can find something aftermarket for much less.

Mark

Edit- That price sounds crazy, so I went back and checked. It's true! They want ~$150 for the rotor and ~$180 just for that little ring!

Further checking shows that ring part # was replaced by a new part #8-97096-411-0 that goes for $90-100. A little more reasonable.
A search of that part # shows it fits a Honda Passport, so ya can order that at your local Honda dealer.

[MSHardeman]

Mark,

Having actually delt with that ring I think $90-$100 is still WAY to much to pay for that thing. It's just a goofy piece of metal and not very substantial at that. I guess the price comes in when they have to machine/cut/cast all those little peaks and valleys into the ring.

I say try and find it in a U-pull-it yard...it's not like they go bad.

[WormGod]

Ya, did my research on it and sheeesh. Talk about a pain in the arse of you want to replace one. That little bit of metal.... with lots of work (imagine doing all 4!). No easy way to check them either without tearing down some. I honestly am curious if I even have them since I had a shop change out my latest rotors. Hard to really tell since my ABS was hosed since before then, heh,

[Bob Barker]

I've always heard them called "exciter rings" when referring to ABS. They are pressed onto the ends of axles in mustangs and near impossible to get off old axles without breaking them. I always had to buy new rings when doing anything with them. This one being bolted onto the rotor assembly is tits awesome!

[RickOKC]

I've priced a few items from the VX Parts List here in the downloads section - so far it seem the current price is the list price X 1.377 (approximately.) If the trend holds, this will be about $85 from Merlin.

[vt_maverick]

So that means Merlin is marking up the list price by 37%?

[deermagnet]

I've priced a few items from the VX Parts List here in the downloads section.
Isn't that parts list like ten years old? Things had to go up a lot since then. Isuzu just had a price increase the first of this year. Dealers have gotta pass that along to us.

http://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/publish/mgpa/vx/vx4/partsprices.gif

St. Charles has all their parts prices on their site-
http://www.stcharlesautoparts.com (http://www.stcharlesautoparts.com/)

Mark

[RickOKC]

Looks like it was created in 2003. I wasn't griping about the pricing or making a commentary on mark-up or anything like that. I'm just happy a list is available so I have the ability to price parts myself. I like being about to determine "just how much does that imperfect little part REALLY bother me!?!" :)

[mcaramb]

Got the rings in last week from Merlin (about $85 ea) and had the mechanic install them at no charge since he screwed up. He also traded out some overheating work (caused by other things he missed) for the cost of the rings. Didn't see why I needed to pay for any of it, but not worth the effort to belabor the point with the idiot. I'll just take my business elsewhere in the future.

[WormGod]

Aaaaaaaand, did it resolve your ABS issue? Light-be-gone?

[TEXAGGIE-VX-01]

What size are the bolts that go into the tone ring?