phruitbat

My Forester Turbo '03 (dealer serviced from new, last serv Apr 04) has done 35,000km and developed an occasional vibration when travelling over 60mph which was quite harsh at 90mph. I live in Germany so this sort of speed is common.

My dealer reckons it's the discs warping cos they're worn out. This I find hard to believe coz:

a. It's still on the original pads, which are long way from needing replacement. It's still on the original tyres for flips sake!

b. A warped disc would vibrated contantly and cause a diferent feel through the pedal.

c. 20,000 miles is taking the urine for a set of discs that spend most of their life on the motorwy where i can drive for hours at a time wthout touching the brakes. The car's done 3 laps of the Nurburgring, but it was wet and i don't normally drive in that manner coz I've got a wife, son and Border Collie in the car.

I wouldn't normally be bothered but the warranty excludes consumables and brakes discs are listed as a consumable. 20,000 is, I reckon, an ureasonably low mileage for discs to need replaceing, consumable or not. My wife's MX-5 has done 60 laps of the Nurburgring over it's 35,000 mile life and it's discs are fine.

Any comments or suggestions or similar experience, please post away.

spikus1969

replace them with the EBC grooved and drilled with there pads a great combination for street use and track use.........never look back give these ago
www.brakes4u.co.uk

phruitbat

Thanks for your response, Spikus, but you miss the point. The discs have worn out before the pads and tyres and Subaru claim it's not a warranty job. If the car were older, out of warranty or I was looking for a performance upgrade I'd take your advice, but I want to know if anyone has had a similar problem, not necessarily on a Forester, and how it got fixed.

Gutmann pug

I warped the disks on my STi at the nurburgring a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be pretty common on scoobs.

vindaloo

First off have a look on the Stoptech website. There's some good info. about whether disks are actually warped or not.

If the car's otherwise sound and pulls up on the brakes in a straight line, find a quiet bit of road and try a number of BIG stops from say 60+ to say 5-10mph. You may find that this improves matters. Important to drive sedately for about 5 minutes afterwards to let things cool down before stopping.

Other ideas: Have you tried switching wheels front to back? Could be a wheel irregularity or a tyre imbalance problem.

J.

The Zohan

I managed to warp the disks twice on my MY99 Turbo. at around 18K miles (30K km?) this was just normal conditions/driving, no track days.

I have had warped disk on other cars and i have never felt the warp unless braking and the hotter the disks get the more pronounced the warp feeling.

Have you had new tyres or had them rotated, sounds like a balance problem to me.

I have had tyres re-balanced during their life as i have felt a shudder through the steering wheel and they can go out of balance.

Maybe the pads are causing the problem or the disks are loose and rubbing on the pads.

I would bet on it being a balance problem.

All the best

Paul

anfywills

i can not belive they will not cover it under warranty
Come Subaru get it grips with it.