Something's wrong with my MY98 and I'm not sure what. Its developed a vibration and steering wheel wobble when braking at speeds above 60 mph. When braking from 100, the vibration is severe and is accompanied by a droning noise. This does not happen when braking from lower speeds and if the pedal is pressed hard, the vibration is less or even goes away. There is no noise or steering wheel wobble when not braking.

Two potentially damaging incidents occurred in the last 2 months. First involved hitting a pot hole which destroyed a tyre. The other was hitting a kerb at high speed (60) with offside wheels.

I think that the wheel bearings are ok (no play). Tracking and wheel balance has been checked and is ok.

Is this a warped disc?

How can I tell?

D.

Djb,

Methinks your problem could be warped discs (fronts), I've got exactly the same prob too, was told it could be possibly rear disc warpage, so changed the rear discs and nowt difference, still does it, am probably going to change the front discs too but they are very VERY expensive for my current brake setup :(

I changed my pads and discs to EBC Greenstuff and EBC standard vented discs around 4 months ago. Replacement discs will be around £95, and I don't want to change them unless I'm sure that they are warped. Any suggestions as to ways of confirming this? And, no I don't have a dial gauge.

D.

Hi DJB,

Just had a very similar sounding problem with my car - steering wobble below 50mph(ish), severe juddering above this. The disks were warped and were only two months old. I had done around 2000 miles on them, of which 1000 miles was motorway driving (very little braking). Got them sorted under warranty

Surely, your disks will be covered. You should get them replaced free of charge.

Good luck

Simon

It may be worth checking the anti-roll bar and suspension bushes. If they are worn it could cause something simalar.(usually on older cars though).
Iain.

DJB, given that you've had a couple of major dings recently, I'd get the suspesion/steering/bearings double-checked. But if they're okay, it's warped discs for sure. And you can't have them skimmed as the warping only occurs when the discs get hot (no wobble on low speed stops?).

You could get them replaced under warranty, but I'd use this as an opportunity to get some decent stoppers fitted, made by someone who invests more of their money in their products and less on their marketing. Godspeed and Pagid are best value.

Richard.

Well it looks like it was a warped disc. Change them yesterday - visibly looked normal which I suppose you might expect. Vibration is now gone.

Spoke to agent who sold me the discs. They may refund me but need to inspect the discs first (at EBC). 5 months out of a set of discs seems not great to me especially since I know that I'm not heavy on brakes (still on original rear pads at 53000 miles!)

D.

DJB
Had same on my AP 6 pot after 3,000 miles, but AP did not even argue about it as they are just going to change disc's. They reckon that it is very rare at such low milege for this to happen, hope your supplier soughts it out.
Terry