I'm looking to get new shoes and cylinders for my lebaron. anyone here partial to any specific brands? rockauto.com has some good prices on monroe shoes. all the cylinders are pretty cheap, and i figure that the brand probably won't make too much of a difference, but if anyone has any brands not to buy, it would be helpful.

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1981 Lebaron with 225; all original, save for a door.

Stick to brands with a long track record of building quality brake parts (Raybestos, Bendix, United, EIS). Wagner would be a moderately-distant second preference. Avoid brands never before associated with brake parts that have been slapped, all the sudden onto who-knows-whose generic brake parts. Monroe made their name with cheap, basic shock absorbers. They do not make brake parts.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I've had good luck with Raybestos. I've just purchased some brake parts from RockAuto, and I generally buy the Professional Grade stuff.

I recently bought 4 Wagner brake hoses for my wife's Ford; all were in nearly identical boxes; all came at the same time from the same store. 1 was made in USA, 1 Mexico, 1 Italy, and 1 China. All but the Chinese one fit well; the Italian one failed at 2K miles, and was replaced with other Italian one that's now lasted 8K+ miles. The Wagner pads seem fine and work well.

Many name companies (Standard & Autolite comes to mind) are also cheapening their parts, so beware. The difference in quality is often obvious.