He used to work there. I believe him, no insult intended to you. Perhaps there is another tab in addition to the warning squeal tab on these particular parts. I do not believe he would remove the squeal tab. FTR, the squeal I had actually came from a foreign object that got stuck between the pad and the rotor (he showed me the semi-circle groove it had worn in there, and guessed it was probably a pebble). The pads were not in dire need of replacement, but they were cheap and he already had the car up there, so why not?
Pads for my car are $5.25 each. Rotors for my car, as I just priced, are $62.99 front/$45.99 rear. I believe that’s each and not per pair, based on the search I did, although I could be wrong and maybe it is for a pair. Four pads = $21, four rotors = $218. Which would be, actually, more than 10x as much. But I’m willing to have my ignorance fought if rotors are priced in pairs. In which case, it’s “only” 5x as much.
I still don’t believe that there’s any kind of strip specifically designed to wear out the rotors (and thus cause your brakes to fail prematurely). But I’ll leave that alone for the moment. One place I can fight your ignorance is on the number of pads and rotors. Each wheel that uses a disc brake system has one rotor and two pads. Since most cars have discs in the front and drums in the back, you need to price out 4 pads (they come as a set of 4 from the auto store) and 2 rotors (they
come individually).
If you have discs all around, you would need 4 rotors and 8 pads (two boxes).
I’ve had VERY good luck at charity thrift shops. I mean, I go shopping at new retail stores, and don’t find what I’m looking for about 95% of the time, and everything costs an arm and a leg. If I go thrifting, I might strike out about 75% of the time, but when I DO find what I want, the price is RIGHT. I went looking for a desk everywhere, but could not find one in a B&M or online which served my purpose, unless I wanted to shell out about $1000 for various components. But I found one in a thrift store for $35.