When I brake, steering wheel shakes

[bhrm]

When I brake from faster speeds, my steering wheel shakes. At first I thought I didn't torque my wheels properly so I re-did them.

I had the wheels re-balanced from last year, don't think that's it because driving on my winters are fine, just when I brake.

There's no loss of braking power though.

Thoughts??

[SonicBoy]

You have warped disc rotors. Best thing to do would be to get new rotors rather than having them turned as the warp will just come back.

[Impressive]

You have warped disc rotors. Best thing to do would be to get new rotors rather than having them turned as the warp will just come back.

You can maybe machine your current rotors, depending on their condition, but I'd get new ones.

[Adamo23]

same thing happened with mine. i changed my brakes and i havnt felt it since

[htc***]

Time for a new brake's job. My car did the same and brought it to the dealer. End up to get new front pads and re-surface the front rotors.

[mounir]

As everyone has said, and from experience, you need new rotors.

[5_Alive]

Replace rotors and pads, clean pins and guide rails, and all will be well again.

[TheMAN]

and torque the wheels down evenly with a torque wrench! rotors warp because of uneven torque on the lug nuts

[Coaster]

Sorry to disagree with everyone, but you have to check the lateral runout of the rotors first. Otherwise you can't be sure that they are warped. I know the symptoms suggest that the rotors are warped, but if the runout is only a few thou it's not the rotors that are causing the problem. My car was doing the same thing & the runout was virtually zero, so I put in a set of new pads & no more vibration. That was before my mileage was @ 100K & now I'm @ 230K with the OEM rotors & the 2nd set of pads. So save some money & check the runout.

[theo575]

sorry for my ignorance, but the run out would be the lip around the rotor where the pad doesnt quite make contact?

[SonicBoy]

Run out generally measures the face of the rotor where the brake pad contacts the rotor. Normally it is sampled in a few spots to determine if there is any variance.

Never heard of measuring where the pad does not contact the rotor.

[theo575]

thanks!

is there any way to measure this at home or would I need to bring it into a shop?

[SonicBoy]

Not unless you had a dial indicator kicking around and know how to measure it.

[bhrm]

Thanks everyone!

The rotors are pretty new though, I had them replaced at 90,000 and I'm at 133,000....Decent Zimmermann's too.

I'll get someone to take a look.

[Kwokalobster]

most likely your pads.

[TheMAN]

like I already said... uneven tightness of the lug nuts are the most common cause of brake judder

most mechanics just blast the lug nuts on and not care.. it leads to over torquing and uneven torquing
wheels needs to have equal tightness to prevent this... I speak from experience! it can be done by torque wrench (slow way) or a torque stick with an impact gun (lazy/fast way)
when I first got my $500 corolla beater, the brakes vibrated like crazy every time I slammed on the brakes... so after I changed the tires and torque the lug nuts to spec, it cut that down in half, then it slowly went away after racking on the miles

[sol_searchin]

Brake rotors is the usual culprit majority of the time, I had a small shimmy when braking, ended up being a busted up wheel bearing. Have a qualified shop inspect it and you'll know 100%.

[Aenema]

I had the exact same issue, and I was advised to change my rotors by Erin Mills Mazda.
Direct Mazda however, machined my rotors (saving me quite a bit of dough) and additionally I changed my brake pads for good measure.
Issue was fixed! 20,000km later and still working fine

[bhrm]

most likely your pads.

Pads still have lots of meat on them. 60% remaining roughly.

[Aenema]

My friends just advised that he had the same issue as well.
Changing the rotors did the trick!