I've been through 4 sets of rotors and countless turnings. After my last set was replaced by Brakepro's (excellent customer service), I find the newest set have warped again. This is not due to aggressive driving, just putzing around town and very little freeway driving.

On the last go-round, the Brakepro's manager called AP to ask them if there was some issue with Evo's specifically.

He said they told him that their research shows that the wheel bearings are a bit off and that every Evo out there has a little bit of wobble in the axle, meaning that it's a matter of when, not if, the rotors will warp, because they are being heated unevenly in the first place.

The only real fix is to turn the rotors on the car, according to them, so I did some hunting last night and found this link:

http://www.rtitech.com/latheinfo.htm

I have an appt. tomorrow morning to get the rotors turned on the car.

Does anyone know if there is something special that should or shouldn't be done to accomodate the car being AWD? Will the fronts just spin opposite and leave the center diff alone? I think the on-car machines drive one axle at a time and I'm only doing the front.

TIA

 

What brake pads have you used?

I'd offer advise on your question, but I absolutely refuse to cut rotors... I dog the SHlT out of mine and they are now actually at minimum thickness and still no "warpage" at over 29K miles (switched to DS2500 pads at 22k).

I am absolutely NOT saying you are wrong or incorrect in your statements about your condition. However, PM me... I'd like to compare habits.

 

i started using the DS2500's within the first few thousand miles. It was the first thing I did.

Since then I've bought in to the theory that they don't warp and then seen quality aftermarket and stock rotors turned on a lathe to watch the high spots be 180* off from each other, inboard and outboard, respectively. The kind of "warpage" associated with pads turning high spots into cementite are claimed to get started at some point by having the pads be applied while very hot and the car stopped. This would mean the high spots, inboard and outboard, would be in the same location as clocked on the rotor face.

Since my rotors were 180* off with their high spots and because the outer edge of the rotor was far more warped than the inner edge - an obvious and drastic taper - it seems more likely to me that the perfect curves of the warpage (and the inclination of the aforementioned taper) would probably match the linearity of wobble at various radius points as measured from the axle centerline - all caused by a wheelbearing that is just a tad off (40 microns, according to AP).

I can see both scenerios (pad buildup vs. warpage) being true, depending on who is driving the car and the quality of parts and specific circumstances of each wear incident (literally the cumulation of how you make the car stop, on average).

I don't ever sit with the brakes applied. If on a hill, I use the E-brake. I'm careful to warm the brakes slowly whenever the car is first driven. I slow at a consistent, medium rate when the brakes are warm and never get them wet while washing the car if the car has just finished driving nor have I driven through any large amount of water since putting these new rotors on. The last set did the same thing over the same amount of miles, but with my GF driving the car mostly (its completely mine now, so that eliminates that variable).

Anyway, I could get far more detailed but it's all water under the bridge at this point. I've been to both ends of the internet and back and have yet to find a solid answer.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow's efforts lasting longer than new/turned parts...

(BTW - My daily commute is a 5 mile round trip. The car has been babied just for proofing this situation one way or the other).

 

Good luck to you! I really hope you find the cause and correct it... even if that means addressing the wheel bearing issue.

I just can't understand the wide ranging irregularities with these cars... it's like the clutch issue. I have over 28k on the stocker including 8 drag strip passes, multiple Auto X launches, and before it was an automatic jail stay in Texas, quite a few standing street "hops". Yet I have none of the problems so many are having.

 

I have witnessed a good amount of Evos having a slight vibration at the steering wheel at highway speeds. I have never heard of anyone confirming that there is a known problem. Who exactly told you this info?

Gil-superz

 

FWIW, I had some vibration at very light braking at highway speeds, so I did a few 40 - 0 stops (not abs style, just real heavy) and the vibration went away.

I don't mean to jack the thread, just thought it may be useful to someone before spending a bunch of $$ on something

 

do you think the Ferodos had anything to do with it?

 

My rotors are wearing fast but even just like my tires did. One set of rotors could have had soft spots but you are treating the symptom not he problem here by continuing to replace the same parts. I find it hard to believe a reputable company would contiue to do this.

 

Thanks! I'm sure I'll be back to report how it turns out. I'm confident it will at least make a significant difference, if not, completely cure the problem. I hope to have as much luck as you with the stock clutch, though I've no plans to beat it up on purpose.


This could be due to wheel imbalance (stick-on weights will almost always cause this) or warped rotors (if it happens on the brakes only). The Baer rotors I had WERE the balance issue, they admitted it, and I got a refund because they're excellent about customer service.

Dan Sigonovich (SP?) is his name. He is Stillen's brake division manager. He was as perplexed as I was about the complete (I've written about 3% of the whole story here) picture of symptoms, proofed-out possibilities, and what to do to fix the problem. We wanted to see if this was Evo specific for some reason and he called AP racing to get some answers. He called me back and said, basically, that AP found a tolerance issue in the wheel bearings during their research and testing for fitment of their products to the Evo 8. He said they found that the bearings were as much as 40 microns off (this is as detailed as he got) and that this turned into significant lateral runout in the radius area of the friction surface of the rotor. Sounded like a pretty solid possibility to me

I used to run into this too, but I found that it was inconsistent. As fast as the wobble would go away, it would return. It would seem to come and go. Then I realized that there are 2 front tires which are constantly being re-clocked in relation to each other because of the different radius of turns that the car goes through - each front wheel will spin a different number of turns, even the slightest turns on the freeway.

If you put an imaginary dot on each rotor face that made a loud click every time it went by the caliper and then you were to drive around, you would notice that the click noises from each front tire would stay in a set pattern as the car drove straight. Once you start turning, the tempo for each tire would be different.

The area(s) of the rotors that generate more friction than others (for whatever reason) are centered in one spot on the rotor, and this spot is the peak of the extra resistance that is causing the pulsation, vibration, or wobble. Each front wheel has it's own spot(s) and as the car drives, these spots line up with each other, or opposite, or anywhere in between. There are infinite possible combinations, but when the tight spots line up just right, you feel it really well, like when pulling up to a stop on smooth pavement. Take one turn or part of one, and it might completely or partially go away. If a rotor is warped like mine was, each side (inboard and outboard, vs. one high spot from hot-clamping) has a high spot and they're 180* off from each other. That doubles the tempo, so to speak, and reduces the mathmatic chances of the high spots aligning. In a way it's better, but it's more subtle, and harder to detect.

No, I'm quite happy with the pads. They're more long-lived than I thought they would be. If you get some, be sure to reuse your stock silencer shims and buy some copper grease from the dealership or wherever you can get it.

My rotors are wearing even as well, it's just that over time, the rotors warp in shape. As I mentioned above, I've written a very small part of the whole situation because it would be a book. I'm not just replacing the same parts as a means of buying time. It's proofing out that I didn't get a bad set, and it's not just one reputable company replacing stuff over and over - it's different companies and varying circumstances.

 

Wow, great post, very well written. Hope everything works out!

I have the vibration while braking at hwy speeds that another poster mentioned as well. I used to have vibration at hwy speeds even when not braking, which started after a tire shop mounted my advans on a new set of wheels. I rotated and retorqued the wheels and vibration went away, but the vibration under braking continues. I've retorqued the wheels a few times and ensured that tires pressures were uniform, which has helped but not eliminated the problem.

I'm approaching 30 K miles, so I plan to replace the stock pads, get ss brake lines and new fluid, but I was hoping new properly bedded pads would help. Hopefully I don't need to replace the rotors. Interesting point about the wheel bearings, I do hear a "hum" similar to the sound my Audi A4 made with a bad bearing, but it's probably the tires..

take care,

FB

 

berkel, the wheel bearing issue isn't that they're "bad" like a noisy wheel bearing is, it's that the most basic fact of the universe is that nothing is perfect. no object in all of creation is perfectly round, and the Evo wheel bearings, according to AP, are 40 microns off... though I have no idea in which respect they're off. Either way, it's most certainly causing a wobble in the rotation of the wheel (my guess is that the inner race or it's seat on the axle(s) or axle(s) themselves would have to be the specific part that is bad).



Rotor turning update (it just gest worse and worse)

When I made the appointment, I told the owner: "I'm incredibly picky about my car and do all my own work unless absolutely necessary, so I just have 3 or 4 things to go over before we get started".

He said "As long as you express your expectations up front, we won't have a problem".

"Really? Oh, that's awesome. I usually don't have a problem with my Mustangs and Camaro's... shops are really accomodating when I've had those cars. Ever since I got this car, people act real wierd once they see the car... it's so bizarre... its like they're cool to me at first, but then they see the car with the wing on the back and it turns them into A-holes or something. The worst part is that it's a factory wing."

"Huh... I don't care too much for those kind of cars myself, but I don't think we'll have a problem."

"Great, I'll see you at 8."

--

So the next morning I show up right at 8 AM and I have 4 things to address:

1) Lug nuts (thin wall socket, removed by hand will not scratch my wheels)
2) Wheel removal (pulling them straight off and not letting them "flop" once loose will prevent the calipers from being chipped)
3) Lift the vehicle with the flat part of the lift pad on the frame rails rather than the pinch welds
4) If possible, please let me pull my car in and out. If not, no worries whatsoever - just a polite request.

When I mentioned these items I prefaced them as "the things we talked about yesterday". I was kissing as much *** as I have EVER kissed and I was, as much as I could muster, respectful, upbeat, and most of ALL, gentle with my tone and demeanor.

This guy's answer was

"Do YOU want to do the work?"
"Well, not really... they aren't my t..." (tools)
(cuts me off)
"You know, I don't think we're gonna do business."
-pause-
"HAAAA!!! good one!" I say, thinking he was kidding.
-pause-


-pause-

"Oh... are you serious?"

"Yeah... you know, we're not going to DESTROY your car. I think you need to leave, we're not doing business."

"Wait, I'm not trying to be demanding or disrespectful... you guys can pull it in... I d...."

"We're not doing business. You should leave."

I just stood there with my jaw agape.

and kept standing there.

and kept standing there.

"Ok... well, I guess I'll be leaving."



Got in my car and drove home to check the phone book for more shops.

I already took the day off to do this kind of crap, so I wanted to get it done.

Found a guy who drives to YOU and turns the rotors on the car. This was SWEET!

I made an appointment so that I would have enough time to get the whole car on jack stands and disassembled. He showed up 20 minutes later and did the job.

The machine he used was OLD school. Had two clamps that he had to mic to get the cutting disks (big round sandpapery things) parallell to the friction surface of each rotor. This thing bolted to the caliper mounts on the spindle and I watched him do the job and had full faith in how he did it.

After he was done (and gone) and I finally drove the car (after painting the visible surface of the rotor hat black (razored the paint off the important areas) they were worse than before!

--

The next day I took the car to a shop where I know the owner (I turn rotors so much, this guy lets me use his lift, his tools, his lathe, and I do all the work and pay him 60 bucks) and what the results will be - perfect results (as far as I can feel with the steering wheel and pedal) when I'm done and the benefit of checking to see if the rotors really do have oddly-placed high spots.

So I turn the lathe on and start cutting and verified what I saw with the pad's wear pattern. The guy's device or tool or whatever basically wore the friction surface all kinds of odd ways. Too much was removed toward the center of the surface. The inboard side was worn differently on both rotors than the outboard side. The driver's side was terribly off and the PS was almost ok (except for aforementioned taper on the friction surface).

All in all, that mobile dude was a complete waste of money, time, and material off of my $600 rotors.

Whatever. I just want the damn thing to drive normally at this point. The odd high spots left over were causing some really wierd frequencies at high enough speeds... sounded just like BART trains (for the bay area folks) going slow over the noisy track sections. I didn't think anything of it, except those high spots have
now turned into hard spots on the rotor.

I could see them while it was spinning around on the lathe. When the bit got to the high spots, the sound of the cutting drastically changed. The metal was obviously very different. You can feel it with your fingers, see it with your eyes, and all clues add up to these pinpoints being very very hard in relation to the rest of the rotor (shop owner and his tech also concurred).

I took another 2 thousandths off, but the tiniest specks of the spots were still there. I decided that it would be better to not definitely ruin the rotor by taking off too much metal and to see what happens if the high spots cause future issues (which they probably will, and that rotor is probably ruined now).

Back to the rotor turning effort:

So one of the tech's comes over and is peeping the situation and decides to blast the just-finished rotor with brake cleaner and paper towels, washing all my black paint off. He feels bad that I just painted them (so they would stop rusting, and yes, they come painted but still rust for some reason) and got out some rustoleum and his Oxy-Acetelyne (SP?) setup and proceeds to paint the rotor while it's spinning, bake the paint with the torch, and he blows metal dust into the tacky paint in the process. Now I have shiny (vs. flat) black paint with metal flakes in it (ghetto metallic?) and it's not even high-temp. I tell him to forget it and that I'll go home and take care of it when I'm done. He says "just leave it, noone will notice"

"Until those specs of metal rust because they're cast iron and not aluminum. Then I'll have rusted metallic black wherever the paint DOESN'T burn off from heat."

In disgust, I finish up the job and reassemble the car, drive it home, take it back apart, paint the damn rotor, and reassemble.


I still need to find a shop that will turn the rotors on the car with a quality machine... and a shop that doesn't get pissed that I don't want my wheels or calipers scratched or chipped.

Anyone have any good recommendations on a shop in the SF bay area that fits the bill?

TIA...

 

I also get that weird look when taking the car in for service anywhere... Hell Mitsubishi service guys ran from me at the dealership when I pulled into the service bay with the dreaded Evo (When I pulled up there were 5 of them by the time I got out of the car there was 1 left they all became very busy all of a sudden).... I think the service people think us evo owners are to "picky" about what they do and we might actually expect the job to be done properly. We expect to much out of their service and to tell you the truth I have had the dealership tell me they don't want to change my tires because they are "high performance tires" I couldn't pay them MY money to have them put THEIR OEM tires on THEIR OEM rims. It's really hard to find anyone that can do anything on these cars when it comes to the 4 rotating masses that roll on the ground and I would imagine the other 4 rotating masses behind those things called rims would be the same way. Most places are used to your normal everyday car with hub caps, and 1 pot calipers with a 6" rotor. Where would a person take a ferrari, or a porsche because they have rather equalivant brakes. Then again it would cost an arm and a leg I am sure, but you might actually get he job done right.

P.S. I have been waiting almost a Month for my damn recall fan motor to be in stock.

 

I have the SAME EXACT issue. no one believed me and now I am on the same boat with you. I basically don’t know what to do???

oh I was going fast and pushed my brakes and my brother was like WTF is that I am like my brakes they are special style

 

I'll try to resurface them on the way to work tomorrow. J/K Not only are the fronst messed up the rear have pad transfer on them from when I put the car away wet on sat after washing it. But I can take care of that with some 100+ stops.

 

Just wondering if you guys ever saw my post about a year ago on this issue. The UK Lancer owners have been complaining and reporting about how the wheels are put on at one point in time of the car's life with an impact wrench and this warps the rotors (#1 they didn't use the star pattern when tightening, and #2 they are using a friggin impact wrench to put wheels on). I know that my 1st Evo started the 80mph brake shudder after about the 2nd tire rotation, but it wasn't severe...I also know of another Evo that did the exact same thing right after a tire rotation.

Just some thoughts. UK guys have been getting the rotors replaced under warranty after taking the car in and pointing to the lug nut walls on their wheels that show the marks from the impact wrench. It's worth a shot. They also talk extensively about the hub warpage and how it deteriorates the rotors.

Here's some good reading for you all. Pay close attention to posts by Blow Dog and Evoboy:

http://www.lancerregister.com/showth...=&threadid=186

http://www.lancerregister.com/showth...=&threadid=215

http://www.lancerregister.com/showth...threadid=29442