djrabbi

Rears are perfectly fine....

3BNick

They may weigh the same, but I'm still going to blame the manufacturing of the rotors in your case. For sure those rotors can not be made to the same exact specifications as the OEM otherwise you would be paying almost OEM prices. Also, get a torque wrench! Proper and even lug torque is pretty cruicial as Jnash mentioned. You can find one for around $100.

Also, how do the hub faces look on the wheel bearings? If there is any corrosion or scale between the hub and rotor you will get run-out that will cause your vibrations.

djrabbi

I think it could be the wheel bearing cause at low speeds gives me a howling/rubbing sound while I hit the brakes?

justinwrock

i have a solution!


sell it! first you had a problem with a stripped screw, now this. what's next? wheel falling off?

djrabbi

Got new rotors in and these have the coating on it! Thank god and hopefully these come out better.

Think I should tell paint the hats?

3BNick

Painted always looks better than rust. As far as the noise, It's probably the tires scrubbing when you hit the brakes. That's a whole lot of car those rubbers are in charge of stopping.

jnash

What do you mean "by-hand"? you hand tightened the wheel bolts just by hand? How can you tell you tightened them enough? They maybe working loose over a few days.

"Bleed the brakes when this is all apart" ??
You mean after everything is put back together I hope.

I am not sure of your skill levels but if this is the first time you have worked on brakes then, although in theory its a relatively easy task to change rotors/pads, you may have other issues that you are not realizing. A worn suspension can cause this, bad rotors, sticking piston, over tight lug nuts, not following new pad/rotors run-in procedures, bad wheel bearing etc etc. You need to carefully check all these to correctly diagnose the problem. Typically a warped rotor will only make the car shake when braking. Does that change when you turn and brake at the same time?
Have you checked the wheel bearings end play?
Do the pistons move in and out without any obstruction?
Have you checked the run-in/out (side movement) on the bad rotors when you rotate them by hand?
Do you have SBC on this car?

I will be interested to see if this problem is solved with your (3rd set?) of rotors and it will be a surprise to me if you have in fact had a rash of bad rotors since I have never and changed plenty over the years including the brands you have.

You can always take a suspected "bad" rotor to an auto-parts and have them put it on their rotor turning machine and see if its got run-out. The classic symptom of warped rotors is a pulsing in the brake pedal when stopping from high speeds. Sometimes that's accompanied by a simultaneous wobbling of the steering wheel.

BBBSS

How are you driving after putting the new stuff on? You're not going out and doing hard stops soon after the new parts are put on are you? The new pads and rotors need to bed into each other and will not have proper braking till you drive around a lil bit on em. The very tiny high spots on the rotors/pads need to mate to each other. If you brake hard before this happens you end up with hot spots and glazed pads, and glazed pads will lead to more and more heat as they slip rather then try to bite.

Put the new stuff on and drive it easy/normal for a couple days.

A dial indicator on the hub to make sure that's not warped and warping the new rotor is a good idea as well. As was also mentioned don't go crazy on lug nut torque.

jnash

I'm of this school for bedding-in pads and rotors. Its all about the dust layer and I am convinced it makes a difference in the performance of the braking system.
http://www.zeckhausen.com/bedding_in_brakes.htm

BBBSS

After warping rotors on two vehicles trying this method I'm back to just driving normally or a little easy for a couple days.

novae500

user error? installer or driver? or possibly bad batch of rotors?

djrabbi

I actually pay someone to do my work haha. If I still had my civic I would tackle this. Let's see if rotors are even warped by my shop. Going this weekend to get it fixed/looked at. If he says they aren't warped then they aren't I guess.

Worth the wait

For what it's worth I installed the cheaper, non coated Zimmerman rotors and they warped within 2k miles.
Swapped OEM rotors, akeenbo pads and flushed the fluid. Vibration gone for the last 12k miles or so.

Between the rusting hats and the vibration I always recommend people spend the extra for the OEM.

Good luck!

djrabbi

Yeah Let's see this time around...I got coated ones this time.