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I hear you on the oily pads and rotor. I have taken to always wearing nitrile gloves when working on cars now. This helps because I can just take the greasy gloves off and put on a new pair when it's time to handle the disk and pads. I also have brake clean on hand for these jobs and plenty of paper towels.
As far as Chinese made stuff, as I said, I know it CAN be good, but just have little trust in being SURE. The original disks in '98 were ATE made in US, Germany or Italy, I don't remember. I just checked and I am pretty certain modern day ATE rotors are also Chinese made. I don't think you can get away from this unless you specifically pay the 50% or so premium for Made in Germany (Zimmerman rotors). From the pictures (sad day when I have to judge a brake rotor that way, but it's 21st century out there...) ATE looks better to me than Volvo, which looks very much like a cheap Chinese rotor with a painted hat. Again, I can not make a judgement of which will be better, but my gut tells me to go with ATE. They are a first tear brake component company and has reputation to uphold, whereas Volvo passenger cars are now Chinese owned. It pains me to say this every time, but Volvo is no longer a "safety" brand in my mind. They are a Chinese sellout. Their cars have not been my favorite since the MY2000 anyway and I highly doubt I will ever buy a Volvo that's newer than '98. Nightmares of fly by wire throttle and other electronic crap just keep me away from those. In fact, I would be happy if I could trade my '98 S70 for a '93-'94 940 wagon. we own one of those as well (wife's chariot and she loves her). Last of real Volvos, IMO and an absolute tank that's fairly easy to work on. Alas, the rear rotors for that car that came from Tasca in a blue box were also made in China :( So far so good after about 15K miles.
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Vladimir. '98 S70 base, 5-speed manual - his, '93 945 - hers
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