Not wanting to hijack Anubiss' thread, I'll ask separately.

How many miles can I expect to get out of a decent set of rotors?

I only ask because mine are made to match my wheels and I'm sure the time will come when this particular design is no longer available.

Should I buy a pair now for the future or will the average set last the lifetime of the bike?

Primo

 

Over 100K miles. They're tuff.

The bike will wear out first. Seriously.

 

I've never worn a set of rotors out on a bike. Maybe some of the mileage kings out there could answer that one. I had 60k on an old Suzuki still the original rotors....

 

Bike rotors are not like car rotors now? Used to be that the rotors were hard as heck and the pads were soft. Now it seems like the pads are hard and the rotors are soft. I have had to replace the rotors twice on my truck in 80K miles.

I just had the pads replaced on the fatboy at 10k... They were still in good shape but the tech could not find the problem so he just shotgunned parts. He won't be working on my bike anymore. =) All he needed to do was bleed the dang things and it probably would have been fine.

 

Even if your matainence skills are poor, rotors can be resurfaced if they begin to get grooves in them. They should NEVER get to that stage....but they will become glazed as time goes by, and will need to be cut accordingly. You wil not live long enough to need new ones unless you encounter a problem that warps them.....which is very unlikely.
Dick

 

How long your rotors last depends you which brake pads you use. I had a pile of OEM pads left over from swapping friends OEM's for Kevlars. I used them on the back of my '00 RKC. My brake rotor was worn to minimum thickness at 42k miles. Something has to wear....either the pads or the rotors...The OEM pads are very metallic and eat up rotors quicker than others. The metal in them is why they are so noisy.

You should never turn the rotors on the late model bikes. There ain't enough there to cut.