Hello, Are there any disadvantages of having brake discs (drill only) ?

 

There is no reason in the world to have drilled rotors on a street-driven car.
It does nothing to improve braking, and they cannot be re-surfaced. Drilled rotors are for race cars where weight reduction is done wherever possible.

I have a car with slotted rotors...

 

Although mine are factory C5 drilled/slotted rotors. i have heard of them causing cracks between the drilled holes. I guess the real question is what are the advantages of having drilled rotors?

 

Yeah, I forgot to mention more prone to cracking...

 

Just get a good quality solid blank. No need for drilled/slotted nonsense

 

Back in the 60s when disc brakes were "the coming thing" and a high-end rarity, the material that the pads were made out of was volatile and would release gas when it got hot. The holes were there to release the gases.

Fast-forward to 1980. Virtually all cars had disc brakes and the materials they were made out of had advanced exponentially. The binding substance no longer outgassed. Holes were obsolete.

Butt... by that time, the mindset had developed in the minds of the unwashed multitudes that "all the fast cars" had rotors with holes in them. By then of course they were USELESS. Keep in mind of course that the holes are HIGHLY VISIBLE to casual onlookers. It became a marketing gimmick to drill them in ever-increasingly "special" "distinctive" patterns. So naturally every poseur just HAD TO HAVE this PURELY VISUAL feature. Worse, the use of discs on BILLIONS of street cars had shown that the holes were stress risers that could lead to heat-related cracking.

Fast-forward again to 2021. Now, we're into 2 WHOLE GENERATIONS of car consumers who know nothing but disc brakes and have seen nothing but "all the fast cars" with rotors that have holes. so ... surprise surprise, they want holes. Never mind that holes are as useless as **** on a boar hog, in 2021.

Resist the temptation to merely "run with the herd" and install the stupid holes because ... that's the way they're all running. Kinda like playing the stock market based on "momentum": doesn't mean a damn thing except that you're chasing the chasers. UNDERSTAND that the holes are USELESS and avoid them.

Slots OTOH are somewhat useful; modern pads, especially metallic ones, cool themselves by letting red-hot dust peel off and be shed, and slotted rotors promote shedding the dust significantly.

 

I agree there's no point to drilled rotors. Issues occur when so few options exist without those holes drilled in. I'm consistently finding it more difficult to get a quality set of rotors that aren't. Often if you just want stock looking rotors the options are the cheapest garbage that doesn't make it through a winter sitting in a garage without rusting up.
I've never had a problem with cracking between holes or worried about getting my rotors cut (#1 because it's rare to find a place that does it #2 because the flat surfaced rotors are too cheap to bother #3 because quality rotors last long if you're just street driving)
My answer is to not worry about if they are drilled or not, worry about buying cheap. Drilled rotors that are made by quality manufacturers are still quality rotors. Don't want drilled? Then don't buy them, but don't cheap out because that's where the problem lies. I'll buy Baer or other credible manufacturers and spend the extra coin and never worry about cracking or rotting out or warping.

 

There's the potential for cracks to develop from the drilled holes, which could then possibly causing a catastrophic rotor failure. Sure; you see drilled rotors on race cars, but those vehicles get their brake components replaced almost as often as you change your socks. This is one of those things that just doesn't carry over well from track to street.