I went OEM's on the front. At 60K the rears still have about half the surface left.

 

If your H3 is a street queen then drilled and/or slotted rotors are fine.
If you do any offroad that involves mud then I would stay with solid rotors. Slots and holes tend to build up and hold the mud resulting in increased wear on the pads from the sandy grit in the holes. Plus any cooling benefit from the holes/slots is gone once packed with dry mud.

 

With drilled/slotted rotors, it is a better way to dissipate the heat from braking. Around here, brake rotors fail more than the brake pads. The rotors rust out, causing them to overheat, warp, rustpit, flake, etc... With today's technology the brake pads last longer than they ever did in the past. Now the rotors are being improved to match the technology in the brake pads (slotted, drilled, coated, etc.)

I don't mess around with any of my vehicles brakes, anything abnormal, I replace the pads & rotors, and clean & lube the calipers & hubs.

Besides that, the drilled/slotted rotors use to be way overpriced, however the price, Primechoice is offering them now, is just as cheap as the regular rotors, and the technology has improved with the coating to prevent rust/corrosion.

Check out clan0013's rotors cooling fins:

 

Since when did the H3 become such a high performance SUV that necessitates cross drilled slotted rotors? I agree with Bunger, save the cash for other projects and stick with OEM pads and rotors. Unless of course you want that bling bling mall crawler.

 

My original OEM brakes lasted a good long while (60K miles & a bit more for the rears), that is what I replaced them with.

 

While the H3 isn't a high performance SUV, the benefits of slotted rotors can be had greatly if you run oversized tires/wheels. Cross drilled are beginning to phase out for simply using slotted, but if you're running a big heavy wheel and tire combo it can be a good choice. Just as stated before, if you go in mud or sand often regular flat OE style are going to be your better bet.

I'm pretty sure no one has ever said "damn, these brakes are too good" when a deer runs in front of them or a car pulls out in front of them.....

 

It's not about the high performance, it's the fact that 4 calipers are stopping alot more weight (than most vehicles that drive on the road around you), causing alot more friction when braking, which turns into excessive heat. Excessive heat while braking increases stopping distance.
The brake replacement package I posted is alot cheaper than oem, and will give you improved braking ability while decreasing the stopping distance.
Even if you replace your brake rotors with oem that has clean cooling fins will improve your braking ability and improve stopping distance.
You could also do like nascar does and add fans & ducts to cool down the brakes.
Bottom line, the lower the temp on the brake rotor, the better the braking ability and shorter the stopping distance.

 

I put Hawk brakes on mine the original or whatever was on there when I bought was terrible and once heated up made a bunch of noise and was scary when braking at the bottom of a long hill.

 

I'm not a brake professional but if I read several articles correctly, ceramic brakes rotors/pads do very little for initial braking capacity. The improvement is seen for extended use such as racing or heavy hauling where the brakes will get exceptionally hot and ceramic has better heat dissipation and less chance of fatigue. Old timers will tell you that asbestos brakes where by far the best.

 

First off, brake rotors are made from iron.
Ceramic brake pads can take more heat than asbestos(not manufactured any more due to health issues), organic, or semi-metalic brake pads, therefore ceramic brake pads will outlast any other brake pad!
The whole point, to improve braking ability and decrease stopping distance is for the brakes to operate at a lower temperature.
The way to do that is to add cooling vents(drilled/slotted) to the brake rotors.