Why have two different sets of brake rotors warped on me in the past 15 months? I had new front pads and rotors done about 15 months ago and after just two or three months they were warped. I had the rotors replaced with different ones and now about a year later, I'm almost positive they are warped.

When I turn a corner, there is a loud scraping sound coming from the driver's side front wheel. When I hit the brakes, the noise goes away. Sounds like a warped rotor(s) right?

I do quite a bit of city driving, but I always apply the brakes easily, only slamming on them when I need to.

 

Does the noise come from that corner when turning left/right, or both ways?

Warped rotors would cause the steering wheel to shutter when braking as the pads are going around this disc which is uneven. I doubt there would be a noise like you mention, but I could be wrong. I am not the best with brake diagnosis.

 

It seems to only make the noise when I'm turning right. The scrapping sound goes "in tune" with the rotation of the wheel and it sounds like its coming from the drivers side front wheel.

 

This may be a dumb question, but do you properly brake in your brakes and rotors?

When you replace either, you need to drive several hundred miles EASILY and not do any hard panic stops so they'll seat properly and not warp.

 

Like I said, I'm one of "those" people who starts braking way before I need to and I slow down and then come to a stop. I can't help it if the person in front of me stops short and I need to as well or if a dog runs in front of my car and I need to stop so I don't hit it. However, those one or two times really shouldn't warp the rotors right?

 

It depends on how hard you hit the brakes.

Braking generates tremendous heat and the harder the panic stop, the greater the chance of warping your rotors.

Only you can determine if you braked too hard.

 

The scraping you hear is caused by the use of aftermarket rotors that have an extra little lip on the inner face that will rub against the splash shield. This can be easily fixed by bending the splash shield away from the rotor. Not related to the pulsating.

The pulsating you feel is likely because you didn't bed in your new brakes correctly. Look up bedding procedures. It requires a series of brakes from like 50mph down to 15mph, never stopping, it heats up the rotors and pads and creates the initial uniform pad deposits. You dont stop rolling because you dont want to transfer a bunch of pad material to one spot on the rotor, which causes shuddering. Once you have bedded the pads in, they are much more resistant to non uniform depositing (shuddering).

Rebedding pads after shuddering begins can also "scrub" away the uneven deposits. I would try that before spending money on new rotors.

Before I learned this trick, I too thought I continually had warped rotors. Now they're always very smooth.

If you do the bedding procedure, make sure your brake fluid has been maintained as things will get hot.

 

I think this might be the problem. I looked through my rims and it doesn't look like there is much clearance between the rotor and the splash guard. I'll bend it back and see what happens. Thanks.