smsmart wrote:SamirD wrote:Vibration will not be caused by the pads, only the rotors. It can also be caused by bad brake break-in. I did this on my first set of rotors on the big brake upgrade on the Galant.
So is the vibration due to the rotors heating up when braking hard as Speed_Racer suggests? And if so, would getting new/different rotors alleviate this problem? The vibration is not exactly reassuring when it starts up while going down a mountain, haha.
Not necessarily heat, but non-uniform heat. A lot of times what will happen is the pad material will not even 'bed' into the rotor surface causing hot spots. Imagine what happens to those hot spots under hard braking--they heat up more and probably expand more than the surrounding rotor--temporary warpage and then vibration.
A new set of rotors can help, but only if bedded in properly. I've found that braking gently for about a 1000 miles does it, and it's also important to not 'sit' on a section of the rotor such as a red light. I usually leave a few inches room and move slightly every so often to give the pads a fresh bit of rotor to sit on.
You can turn the rotors too to get them smooth again, but then the thinner surface is more prone to permanent warping so I always just get new rotors and keep old ones as emergency spares.
I haven't warped a set of rotors since I started doing this, and I run Castrol SRF brake fluid in all my cars. My good buddy who was our local lead Porsche technician says I'm as hard on brakes as the Ferrari racers he knew at his last job at Ferrari!
