Help! CVT clunking from D to R and steering shakes when high speed braking.

[Eggman]

No. I thoroughly enjoy the airplane sounds you make while you spoon feed me the information. Lol

Haha! I wanted to add more to it but couldn't at the time.

Thanks for posting that info. More can be found here: Brake warp myth

Now I'm no expert, but it seems to me worth it to at least try rebedding the brakes. Imagine if the rotors are still usable but get replaced anyway. The original problem could very likely return because it is a matter of behavior, not faulty parts.

[Top_Fuel]

Any competent shop can check for lateral runout on a rotor with a dial indicator. Here's a video explaining how it works...



I'm an ASE Master Technician. If my steering wheel shakes in my hand when I hit the brakes, the above test is the first thing I'm doing. Just sayin'...

[Eggman]

I'm an ASE Master Technician. If my steering wheel shakes in my hand when I hit the brakes, the above test is the first thing I'm doing. Just sayin'...

Thanks for posting the video. I'm pretty sure lateral runout is covered in one of the articles in the search results, but this covers it too.

It's nice that you have access to the tools to measure this. Not everyone has a micrometer & runout gauge - I don't.

So if you come across excessive lateral runout, would you turn your rotors or replace them? What do you think about rebedding the rotors?

[Top_Fuel]

I just wanted to post that video so you guys would see what a shop should do to check for a runout problem. No shop should just throw new rotors on a car without doing a couple of checks.

...if you come across excessive lateral runout, would you turn your rotors or replace them?

I haven't resurfaced a rotor on any of my personal vehicles for 20+ years. This is for a couple of reasons.

If the rotor developed a thickness variation problem, it may not be a quality rotor to begin with. I've never had a pulsating brake pedal or runout issue with quality rotors. But I have had problems with OEM and cheap aftermarket rotors. Normally you think OEM means quality, but with brake rotors that is not the case for a lot of cars.

If the rotor developed a thickness variation to begin with, it happened for a reason (low quality materials, excessive heat build-up, etc). If you remove material from the rotor to make it smooth again, you also just made it thinner. So now its ability to handle heat has been reduced even further. The likelihood of the problem returning is high.

Rotors aren't expensive and I don't like doing a job more than once. So when my car needs rotors, I just replace them with high quality aftermarket. I've had good luck with rotors from brakeperformance.com. If someone is on a budget and money is tight, go ahead and resurface them.

What do you think about rebedding the rotors?

When you install new rotors/pads, that is a good idea. If you have existing brakes, then trying to re-bed the pads to fix a pulsating brake pedal or shaking steering wheel is not going to fix the problem.

Here is one issue I didn't think about which could be a problem for cars that are parked for a long time...

[Fummins]

30k is very premature for warped rotors. It depends on how you use your brakes. I personally wouldn't bother trying to get someone to turn rotors. They are cheap enough to just buy new(aftermarket). Plus you aren't down a vehicle while waiting for someone to turn them.

As far as your clunk goes, does it do it all the time? Only from D to R or R to D as well?