Warped rotors?

N

nuch

New member
Just tried to do a front brake job on my 04 SR5. Took rotors into O'Reilleys to have em turned and they said they were too warped to turn. I have a little over 49,000 miles on the vehilce, does a mix of city and hwy. Lots of highway miles as it had been from NY to MO and back several times.

Should try to see if somewhere else can turn the rotors? If I have to replace them should I go to stealership (150-180) or will ones from a store be ok? I am already not impressed with factory, since I don't tow or ride the brakes like an old lady.

Thanks for any ideas as well as allowing me to vent.
 
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First I wouldn't try to turn them at all. Mine warped and the dealer turned them and they were warped again in no time. If you go OEM then partznet offers them for about $100/rotor. But I personally don't have confidence in the OEM rotors and when I get around to it I am going aftermarket which are much cheaper and IMO can't be any worse than the OEM ones.
 
You can cut rotor several times before the thickness falls below the minimum thickness outlined in the FSM, however they may not be as flat as brand new ones. Some shops can get it right, sort depends on the condition of the lathe but why bother. I realize that it is dirt cheap to turn them ($12) but I hate doing a job twice to get it right.

Just buy new ones and be done with it
 
I also plan to change the rotors on my truck whenever they wear out. I've been reading about too many warped rotors on this forum. I plan to upgrade to the larger front brake calipers in the future if the price isn't to steep.
 
Don't let the pads wear more then 50% or the system will not dissipate heat properly and warp the rotors.

Koz
 
Koz said:
Don't let the pads wear more then 50% or the system will not dissipate heat properly and warp the rotors.

Koz
Click to expand...

Koz,
I 99.9% of the time agree with your post. With that said. I am going to have to disagree with this one. I understand the fact there will be less material to disapate heat. But you can warp a set of rotors many ways. Heat is the largest contributing factor thou. You can have a panic stop and warp a set, uneven Lugnut torque ect.....

It just seems like Toyota would have designed the system to use pads beyond 50%. Mine warped slightly around 28-29k miles. I still had over half the pad left. I now have 58k on the originals. The slight warp has not gotten any worse. Which is really weird to me. Every other vehicle I owned that warped rotors got worse with time. I still have over 1/3 of the pad left. (visual check)

I agree with the other post. Don't turn rotors they will warp again twice as quick if not faster.

As far as OEM or Aftermarket rotors. I have seen them both warp for various makers so I don't think one is always better than the other.

No offense meant KOZ. I will just agree to disagree.
 
NCSCOTT said:
Koz,
I 99.9% of the time agree with your post. With that said. I am going to have to disagree with this one. I understand the fact there will be less material to disapate heat. But you can warp a set of rotors many ways. Heat is the largest contributing factor thou. You can have a panic stop and warp a set, uneven Lugnut torque ect.....

It just seems like Toyota would have designed the system to use pads beyond 50%. Mine warped slightly around 28-29k miles. I still had over half the pad left. I now have 58k on the originals. The slight warp has not gotten any worse. Which is really weird to me. Every other vehicle I owned that warped rotors got worse with time. I still have over 1/3 of the pad left. (visual check)

I agree with the other post. Don't turn rotors they will warp again twice as quick if not faster.

As far as OEM or Aftermarket rotors. I have seen them both warp for various makers so I don't think one is always better than the other.

No offense meant KOZ. I will just agree to disagree.
Click to expand...

This is only my theory and you may be right. You are 100% correct that there are many reasons why rotors warp and I think I have experienced all of them, at one time or another. You can see that I use my brakes vigorously being that they had to be replaced them at 20K miles. I blew two sets of rotors because I didn't torque the lugs (on a Corolla). After I torque the third set I had no more problems. Through time, I found that the biggest killer of rotors is heat. I believe that if you make a conscious effort to not hold the bakes after stopping when the brakes are very hot will help prevent most warping. I have experienced that most of the time, when rotors warp, the pads were worn more then 50%. I found that when I keep the pads above 50% I had very little problems with rotors. I once put TRD HP pads on my Taco and Avalon and within a couple months the rotors were shot on both vehicles. I really believe that careful matching of the pads/calipers/rotors and how well they dissipate heat is really critical to the service life.

Koz
 
Beats me as to what causes it. I replaced them with Wagner, once O'reilleys got the right size in. They gave me rotors that were too big at first, off of a sport model maybe? I have the SR5 with 17" wheels, they went by wheel size. The job took me about 6 days, with about 1.5 actual hours of work. The rest was mostly waiting for the right parts.

Thanks to everyone for their posts, as well as previous posts detailing the brake job. Helped alot.
 
nuch said:
Beats me as to what causes it. I replaced them with Wagner, once O'reilleys got the right size in. They gave me rotors that were too big at first, off of a sport model maybe? I have the SR5 with 17" wheels, they went by wheel size. The job took me about 6 days, with about 1.5 actual hours of work. The rest was mostly waiting for the right parts.

Thanks to everyone for their posts, as well as previous posts detailing the brake job. Helped alot.
Click to expand...
you could've documented your brake service for us who wants to DIY too.
 
Koz said:
This is only my theory and you may be right. You are 100% correct that there are many reasons why rotors warp and I think I have experienced all of them, at one time or another. You can see that I use my brakes vigorously being that they had to be replaced them at 20K miles. I blew two sets of rotors because I didn't torque the lugs (on a Corolla). After I torque the third set I had no more problems. Through time, I found that the biggest killer of rotors is heat. I believe that if you make a conscious effort to not hold the bakes after stopping when the brakes are very hot will help prevent most warping. I have experienced that most of the time, when rotors warp, the pads were worn more then 50%. I found that when I keep the pads above 50% I had very little problems with rotors. I once put TRD HP pads on my Taco and Avalon and within a couple months the rotors were shot on both vehicles. I really believe that careful matching of the pads/calipers/rotors and how well they dissipate heat is really critical to the service life.

Koz
Click to expand...

Another frequent cause of rotor failure is sudden change in temperature of the metal. In the north, it is not uncommon for rotors to warp in the winter, when they get hot from hard use, then have cold water/slush splashed on them by going through a puddle.
 
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Could be glazed pads

Have you actually measured the runout of the rotors? I had a bad vibration from the pedal when slowing below 30mph, I could fell the truck "lurching" while stopping from 10-0mph.

It was wicked annoying. I replaced the rotrs, brand new. Guess what? SAME PROBLEM. Didn't go away with new rotors.

I went online and started to search, found a site that basically said most rotors aren't warped, it's glazed pads that have overheated/glazed from buildup of braking gasses released by the pads. They pulsate because of this hardened uneven surface and can lead to warped rotors over time.

So I closely inspected my pads, and I really could not tell if they were glazed, they looked fine. So I ground them on a surface grinder at work, took about 2mm off each pad.(I got a ride to and from work that day while I hade the truck on stands in my garage).

So after replacing the ground down pads, guess what. NO PULSATION. Really weird. Haven't had a problem for months now.

That site also stated that the rotors can get this glazed uneven coating on them, and can sometimes but not always be removed with sandpaper. Sometimes they would need to be turned down to remove the glaze which embeds itself into the metal .

Whish I could remember the name of the site, but it was a while ago.
 
Jacobzky

I would have documented if there had been anything new, but I just followed the previous posts and had no problems.
 
ToolmanJohn said:
Whish I could remember the name of the site, but it was a while ago.
Click to expand...

Was it this site?
-Warped- Brake Disc and Other Myths

I'm currently trying to diagnose my own pulsing brakes and I'm almost positive its a stuck caliper as I can occasionally hear/feel a clunk in the drivers side rear after releasing the brake. All the searching I've done on this site leads me to believe that the majority of 4th gen 4runner brake pulse issues are bad/seized calipers, not so much the rotors. Obvoiusly every vehicle is different but before buying new pads and rotors, maybe check that the caliper isn't seized first.
 
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