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  #1  
Old 12-28-2009, 03:35 PM
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Front vibration under hard braking

I had this problem for a while now, and tried every possible solution there is to try. When I decelerate from the freeway speed to stop, or when I am driving downhill at 50 to 80 mph, and apply brakes, my steering wheel begins shaking and I have really violent vibration coming from the front end. The problem is not as obvious, or is not present when driving on city streets and decelerating from 40 mph. It only appears under harder loads. It started doing it long time ago, and since then I have done the following things:

Alignment – didn’t solve the problem

Resurfacing of the rotors – solves the problem but only for a month

Changed break pad, rotors, calipers – solved the problem but only for a month

Changed the tires, rotating the wheels around – didn’t make any difference.

What can it be? It is something that makes my rotors uneven, and brake pads unevenly catch the disc. I thought there might be some oil on the disc that makes it slip, apparently not.

I am stuck. Anyone has any idea?
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  #2  
Old 12-28-2009, 04:12 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

I'm no expert but,,,,,,factory rotors tended to have a warpage issue when they got hot,i had the same problem, i ended up changing out to drilled/ slotted rotors (overkill) and my problem went away, My symptoms were, say,, traveling at 60 MPH....hit the brakes( a little more than tapping) and front end wobble.
Hope this helps.
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  #3  
Old 12-28-2009, 04:20 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

i would suspect a brake hose may have collapsed and is hanging up a caliper. are both rotors wearing the same? just a thought. it happened to me once. maybe check your balljoints while your down there.
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Old 12-28-2009, 04:30 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

#1, resurfacing rotors hardly ever helps since it warped once, now there is less metal and its thinner which means it is going to take even less heat to warp them again.
#2 It also takes awhile for rotors and pads to "break in" and so breaking needs to be very easy for the first 500-1000 miles and minimal to no hard stops.
This just simply sounds like a brake warp issue that is due to braking too hard imo... I laugh when people say that the SVX is so prone to rotor warp, I've had cars that were heavier and had smaller rotors/pads and didn't have problems with warpage. In the end, brakes all come down to the person who is driving.
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Old 12-28-2009, 05:12 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

hi wheel shake when braking is very common complaint of subaru owners and svx is well known for it too ,rotors are the only thing that makes sense,i see this daily ,up graded drilled and slotted rotors allow the heat and gases from braking to escape ,if you had a stuck caliper the brakes would work with a pull or have excessive heat from one wheel ,in my 30 years i have never seen a brake line collapse ,use of a good brake pad cant hurt either
charlie
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Old 12-28-2009, 09:20 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

To All,

Thank you for all your contributions. Here is what I know:
The brake line is not collapsed – I checked.
Calipers are moving freely without any hang ups or stops.
Brake pads wear off evenly on both sides.

Rotor heating up…. could be an issue. I drive to work every day across the hill and this may have contributed to rotor heating up.

Hard braking... i do this very rarely, almost never. All i have to do is tap the brakes for the car to start shaking. Again, it only happens if speed exeeds 50 mph.

I have never heard of a term “Brake warp”, I will do some research.

From what I understand, my next step would be to try drilled rotors. I will let you know if this solves the problem.

Thanks

nikita
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  #7  
Old 12-28-2009, 09:23 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

Don't overlook proper and even torquing of the lug nuts. Also flushing the brake fluid can help.
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  #8  
Old 12-28-2009, 11:04 PM
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

If you hit a pot hole lately the hub might be warped.
That would be pretty easy to check.
Keith
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  #9  
Old 12-29-2009, 02:28 AM
1986nate 1986nate is offline
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Re: Front vibration under hard braking

Quote:
Originally Posted by zamorush View Post

I have never heard of a term “Brake warp”, I will do some research.

nikita
rotor warp, w/e
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