Severely Warped Rotors - Is This Set-Up Any Better?

I bought a Rock Warrior just over a year ago and when I was making the 400+ mile journey from the seller's place to my home, I quickly noticed that the rotors were pretty badly warped. I'm wondering if the seller had to slam on his brakes while towing something. They are horrible, the most severely warped rotors of any vehicle I've ever driven in my life. In fact, the wheels were also out of balance so I had substantial vibration in the steering when cruising and braking the entire trip back. When I got the truck home, I took it to a shop near my office to get it inspected and the tech (young guy, inexperienced) noted that my pads had about 70% life left but did not inspect or document the rotors condition. Since the pads had a fair amount of life left, I've put off doing a complete brake job but it just seems that the rotors are getting worse and worse as time goes by, with substantial shaking in the steering wheel now when applying brake pressure. So it's now time to get this done. I've had Brembo rotors installed on previous vehicles and they've been pretty good so I'm thinking of going with the Brembos pictured paired up with the TRD pads pictured. Anyone have experience with this set-up and can advise on whether or not it's worth spending the extra money to do this vs. going with something more OEM? Thanks!

 

Get power stop Economical and solid braking performance

 

I don't have any experience with the Brembos, but my OEM rotors have worked well for me. I tow often and almost always have several hundred pounds of gear in the bed. At ~140k, I changed the brakes and rotors and used the TRD pads; they have better bite and feel, IMO, but leave more dust as well. The fronts warped after a couple thousand miles, BUT that turned out to be from the tire jockey running my lugs down with the air gun set to 'whole-hog'. I discovered this when I went to swap the newly warped rotors and my m12 stubby impact wouldn't bust the lugs loose so I tried my m18 mid-torque impact, which wouldn't bust them either. For fun, I pulled out the torque wrench at it was clicking at 250 lbs-ft trying to back them off. Had to pull out the big gun and discovered that over half of the factory lugs were swollen or mushroomed. I ended up having to cold chisel a half dozen of the lugs off. I was pretty ticked. Replaced the OE rotors with another set of OE rotors and zero problems since.

 

I asked my Mechanic about brakes just this week. I have 88,000 miles on the stock pads & rotors. He believes, (notice I didn't say "FEELS") that I should see 100,000 miles from the OEM set-up. I'm certainly considering using OEM pads & rotors when the time comes.

 

I went with OEM rotors and Akebono pads from RockAuto. I'd do it again and again.

 

Dude. I hope you called that shop and told them about your experience. They need to know their guy is completely inept at his job. He's probably damaging a ton of customer vehicles as he goes mega ooga on everyone's wheel studs

 

I'm at 73k on OEM rotors. 2nd set of pads (went with Powerstop Z36).

 

My oem lasted about 20k before I started getting bad shaking when braking. It was worse when they were hot like when driving in the hills. I went with stoptech cryo slotted rotors and ebc yellow pads and they have been good.

If you’re doing rotors, replace your pads too. Also sounds like you need your tires rebalanced.

 

I don't understand all the responses of people with their factory rotors that aren't warped. The OP and I are in the same situation, our factory ones warped. This is a known problem with our trucks and oem rotors. Telling us that yours are fine doesn't help any. I'm going with the Stoptech kit that was recommended before on here. The real answer is one of the $4000 big brake kits, but I can't swing that currently.

 

Angry much?

 

Mostly at Toyota for their shit rotors.

 

Ah. I feel the same about their easy to scratch interior door panels. Sorry for your misfortune with the rotors.

 

Would you say then that the issue is more to do with pad choice?

 

Uneven wear doesn't get worse with extra heat, then better when cooled. That's warping in action. I have had this issue for a while and I just hit 50,000. Up until I was coming down mountain passes in Montana, it was tolerable. I only had a uhaul with two four wheelers and two dirt bikes, so I was no where near max towing capacity. I have also seen a ton of threads stating the same warped rotor problems in the Gen 2.5 forum.

 

The Suby only has rotors on the rear or she only did the rear rotors? lol

 

I won't make you feel even worse by telling you I'm an elementary SpEd teacher lol

yeah that IS weird to have the rear hit harder than the front... is there a problem with the brake proportioning valve? There are online reports of rear brakes wearing out after 30k miles or less on Subies

 

In my case and my case only, I don't jump on the brakes every time I need to slow down by a few miles per hour. By staying in "S" mode and choosing the proper gears, I can go around most corners + numerous other instances, without touching the brakes. Dropping a gear or two is normally all it takes to avoid "free-wheeling" from the highest gear the transmission "thinks" is best. "Oh but it might harm the transmission"... This would make sense if automakers haven't had to include soft wear in the Transmissions of most newer vehicles, to downshift with a brake-tap on steep enough grades. Why? Because most "drivers" will NEVER touch the shifter except for P-R and D!

 

Engineers

 

I went with Stoptech cryo'ed rotors, TRD pads, and Goodrich stainless lines. It was a great improvement over stock. I've warped stock Tundra rotors a couple of times, so I wanted an upgrade. I have Brembo rotors that are warped (albeit on another vehicle), so I plan on changing those out to a different brand.

There is a specific bedding procedure for the TRD pads - something like 10x hard braking from 60 to 0, then cool the red hot brakes and rotors for 20 minutes. Make sure you do that immediately.

 

During bedding process:

While cooling it is imperative that pads are not resting on rotors. (e.g. foot on brake pedal at red light)

 

Thanks to all for your feedback. Much appreciated. I inherited my brake issues but completely understand that others with the OEM set-up have not had any issues. Clearly in my case, the previous owner did something that caused major uneven wear or the warping issue.

Thanks timsp8 ...yes, if I replace rotors, I always change the pads at the same time. And on the flip side, if I change the pads and the rotors are OK, then I always have them machined when new pads are installed. I can check on having the tires rebalanced. I have the BFG All-Terrain TAs and I'm not a fan of them and they are now 5 years old, although they have tread wear left. I'd like to get new tires and also change out the wheels so I might just do it all at the same time if I can swing the money.

Army of One ...thanks for your feedback. So I'm not the only one it sounds. Mine is bad to the point where I'm a bit embarrassed if I'm driving on the freeway and apply the brakes and my steering wheel vibrates so bad that you can see my driving hand shaking with it. If the people next to me look over, I'm sure they'd get a good laugh (ha!).

pvmike ...thanks! I might go with your set-up. Sounds like you have it done right. And yes, I know about the break-in procedure on the TRD pads. I think, though, that you aren't supposed to drop back to 0 but rather slow down to like 5 mph, and then repeat the process. The pads can't be clamped to the rotors when the rotors come to a stop, at least that is what I've read.

 

Regarding this post I initiated last summer, I finally had my brake job done a few weeks back. I could not get the TRD high performance pads ...several dealers informed me these pads were discontinued and I was not able to source front and rears. Same with the Brembo OE style rotors, could not find anyone that actually had them so I ended up purchasing Bosch QuietCast ceramic pads and the matching Bosch QuietCast rotors. Well, my mechanic said the front Bosch pads didn't fit right for some reason so we scrapped using those and he installed Akebono pads on the front and the Bosch ones at the rear. He commented that Bosch auto parts are garbage nowadays so that was a bit of a surprise to me. I also bought and had him install SDHQ kevlar brake lines for shits and giggles. Life is SO much better now ...braking is so nice and smooth compared to the train wreck I had before. By the way, this mechanic commented that the Tundra OE rotors were known to be problematic so mine being severely warped didn't surprise him. Truck only had 24K miles on it when I got it and the rotors were horrible then. Just changed them with 34K miles on it now. I kinda disagree with him on Bosch parts, though. I've always had pretty good luck with Bosch anything. I love their tools!

 

THIS.... RIGHT.... HERE!!! Colorado TJ you are absolutely correct!

It is very rare to "warp" a rotor. Most times it is a pad material build-up. Could be from the casting process of the rotor, where it has hot spots (higher percentage of carbon in the steel in that area) that pick up more pad material than other areas. Could be from setting the parking brake on hot rotors, could be a lot of things. I've done the backyard resurface (emery cloth or sanding disc) many, many times after track days with my M3. Brake rotors on a track car get much hotter than a daily driver, probably even hotter than a tow vehicle (don't quote me on that!). The top link above goes into this issue. Guys, try a resurface first, either with emery cloth or sandpaper, or get your rotors turned. MUCH cheaper than buying all new. Pad changes can work too,(remember that you need to get the old material off first) just make sure you follow the proper bed-in procedure. You have to have pad transfer from the pads to the rotor, this is the way that brakes actually work. Transfer of material from the pad onto the rotor during the bedding in procedure, gives the pad something to "bite" on the rotor. Contrary to popular belief and "internet wisdom". Without this layer of pad material, your brakes will not work well. If there was an issue during the casting process and higher levels of carbon settle in certain areas of the rotor, these tend to get hotter and pick up more pad material, creating a "high spot" on your rotor, that starts as a slight shudder, then gets increasingly worse. That's when everyone starts telling you that you have warped rotors. You can run a dial indicator on the rotor and see the high spot, then the normal runout of the rotor. Sometimes getting the rotors turned will take out the layer where the excess carbon is and that will cure it.