I have vibrations in my Van at both low and high speed. Also hitting the brake hard causes vibration in the Brake Pedal. I was told that I may have Warped Rotors. My question is why would Warped Rotors cause vibration when accelarating ? I can understand the vibrations due to rotors during braking but I dont understand the vibrations during accelarating. FYI -- I have balanced/rotated tires, alignment recently done, new tires, new brake pads.
Any help would be appreciated.
Hello guys:
someone must have an idea about this ?
Also had my wheels checked, nothing was bent.
Well ya hafta give us a chance to see it first ! Geeez! What vibrating? The steering wheel, the whole van, the pedals, what ? need a little more info but I'd say that the vibration during braking sure sounds like bad rotors.
Oh and having a warped rotor can transmit that warpage to the drums in the rear as well.
Semper Fi SAINT. May you rest in peace.
its because there are high spots on the rotor and it rubs on the pads causing this vibration. take your wheel off and move the rotor and you'll hear and feel the rotor when it hits the high spot. also when you brake you feel it pulse because the pad moves from the high spot to the low spot. its hard to explain.
btw give people more than 10 mins before you throw a fit.
i had a lower control arm go bad on my old van, so it wouldnt hold a stock spec. alignment, so it would shake at all speeds no matter what. im not saying for sure that is the problem with your car, but they wouldve told you if there was something wrong where the car couldnt hold an alignment, when you got that done. so unless they said anything to you like "an alignment wont do any good because of (insert part name
)..." than i wouldnt worry about that. just figured id share my experience with that one. 
but yea, if theres absolutely nothing wrong with the alignment, it may be the rotors are warped. i believe its about $20 to have a single rotor shaved back to stock specs, but if the car is always shaking, having them shaved may not do it. you may need to buy completely new ones. and def. dont forget about the rear drums if youve got em. same deal would go for them.
since you have new pads it will increase the vibrations as well, because of the fact that they arent yet worn into what the old ones were.
good luck dude!
Thanks everybody for your replies.
Jackalope --- Vibes are in the steering wheel, gas pedal, brake pedal and the floor. Both at low and high speed.
An additional thing --- I have noticed a clunking noise with a thump in the Brake Pedal while backing out the car from a parking space and turning the steering wheel fully to the right, then shifting from R to D and turning the steering wheel to the left --- What does that tell to you guys. Is this a CV joint or Brake ?
Jon DeVincenzo --- Yes I do have an alignment issue. The front TOE has gone off twice in last 6 months. So the Control Arm scenario also seems likely to me. Any idea how much it would cost to repair or replace that (hopefully not an arm & leg).
Lets assume its is the control arm, would that also cause vibes during braking ? or do you guys think that I may have 2 different issues here with the Rotors being bad too.
I have left the car with Midas this morning to recheck the brakes (since they machined the rotors last time). If they tell me the truth hopefully we can rule out or rule in the rotors.
I would appreciate more of everybody's input on this.
i dont believe in getting the rotors machined. its just easier to replace them
Bey new rotors and if its still there grab some new drums too. Once you get this done see how it feels.
Semper Fi SAINT. May you rest in peace.
yea, it was a toe issue with me as well.
i got the control arm from a friend who sells brand parts (ford, gm, chrysler, etc.) so the part was about $100 at a friend price, and i did the installation myself, which saved a lot of money. with installation i would say it could get up to $200 at least (the part really being around 150 or so)
the problem was that the entire control arm was worn out, rusted almost all the way through, and all of the rubber bushings were shot. so i would get an alignment and by the time i got the damn thing home it would be toe in again. looked, felt and sounded like crap. the same deal with the shaking would happen every time it went out.
what causes it(in this case) is the fact that the tires are already worn into a patern, and the second you change that, either getting it aligned or knocked out of alignment, it will try to change that pattern, causing the car to have a mild bounce or hop which feels like the entire car is shaking, because it is.(not a noticable amount of hop in sight, but in sound and feel definately) and it increases with acceleration. for me tho, at slower speeds it was ok, until i hit about 40.
what i did was change the control arm and then got an alignment for a final time. it worked out ok, the tires wore back to what they should be relatively quickly and the hop went away. and then i sold the hunk of crap
.
i dunno if that makes a whole lot of sense lol, but i do hope it helps
OK midas put the blame sqaurely on bent front wheels. They rotated front wheels to the back and re-balanced the wheels. However the vibrations has not moved, I still have it in steering, gas pedal and brake pedal. The wheel rotation should have moved the vibration to the floor ans seat of the car, but it did not.
I know wheels are not bent since I had all 4 wheels checked at another place earlier. So it is still either the Rotors or the Control Arm.
However when the guy took off front wheels, I noticed that the driver-side Rotor would "Wobble" back and forth if you push and pull it. Does anybody know if that is normal ?
I would appreciate an answer on this.
I just dont want to make unnecessary costly repairs unless I know the exact source of the problem.
Thanks
it should be snug where you cant move it. if the caplier wasnt taken off or compressed then the rotor should have no play in it.
your best bet is to take it to a real mechanic and not some crap place where anyone can get a job doing oil changes and brakes
Yes the Caliper was not off only the wheel was off.
The million dollar question is "Where to find these honest and real" mechanic. So far I have only run into greedy and dishonest types.
Another observation: I can move the brake pedal "Right" --- > "Left" horizontally if I push on it horizontally from the edge of the pedal.
It does not seem right to me, what do you guys think ?
Just take it to a real mechanic and he will probably be able to tell you what is wrong in a few minutes.
