I was inspecting my front brakes today and noticed the piston boot on my passenger side caliper is torn, as are the boots that cover the caliper bolts on both sides. New calipers are not that much so I figure rather than trying to rebuild them (which I haven't done before) it might make sense to just replace both.

I notice they sell calipers for my XJ with both metal and phenolic pistons... the ones that are on there now have metal pistons and I assume this is the way to go?

There seems to be a big price gap for the calipers depending on where you buy them from... from $18/ea for Centric brand on RockAuto to $71/ea at Napa, and a lot of options in between... is there anything wrong with the basic A-1 Cardone remans that are about $30 each? I don't need loaded calipers since I already have nice Hawk pads I'm going to use.

While we're on the subject of brakes is there a particular brand you guys like for rotors? I was looking at the Napa Ultra Premium ones that have an anti rust black coating on the rotor hat and vanes.

 

I have the O'reilley complete brake package up front.... pads, rotors and calipers. I think all was around $100 after returning the caliper cores.