06 camry brake problem!! Help!

[nabeel24]

Hey there guys... having a bit of a problem with my brakes. I recently bought a 06 camry SE and I replaced my front brake pads because well, they were worn out and had a slight vibration when i slowed down. My problem is that when i press the brakes and slow down, the brakes I guess (STILL) cause the car to slightly vibrate. When I did my front brakes I did machine the rotors, which I had hoped would stop the vibrations. BTW my car has 84k miles if it helps any.

Any help will help, this is getting really annoying. Thanks all!

[fatngs]

how do your rear rotors look?

[ThaSleeper]

Not sure if this is the same thing or not, but I know my dad told me that close to 90k he started to feel the ABS in the front. He's redone his brakes and rotors as well. I wouldnt have believed him, but i drove it and felt the same thing. He has an 05 V6 LE with over 100k. I have an 09 V6 LE and havent felt the front do it yet, but i'm keeping an eye out for it. Like I said, im not there 2drive your car and say its the same thing, but maybe some of the other Gen 5/6 owners with high mileage can confirm whether their front brakes do the same slight pulsing when coming to a stop.

[nabeel24]

Tbh, I have only checked the rear brake pads, haven't even looked at the rotors to see if they needed turning or anything.

[fatngs]

i had a cadillac and when i hit the brakes the entire car would shake badly.... the rear rotors looked ok and the fronts looked a little worn so i replaced the front.... car stil did it so i pulled off the rear rotors and there was a chunk of metal missing

i would check your rear rotors and if tht doesnt work i would check the fronts again and consider replacing them if they dont look too good

[nabeel24]

I'm not a guy who can look at rotors and see if they're good or bad, don't know much about brakes unfortunately. But I might as well then have my mechanic take a peek at the back rotors.

[Donald E. George]

Have you checked the slide pin bushings and pins for excessive wear? Having the rotors turned should have found out of spec run-out and pararallelism but maybe not. At your mileage,I would replace the rotors and pads with quality components available on the net. I believe caliper mounting kits are also available. Regards

[Hennessy Hek]

When ur vibrates/shakes when u brake it's usually cause ur rotors r warped. I suggest u replace then cuz it only gets worse. I've have mine machined and it came back within 25k miles so I just replaced them. Problem solved.

[nabeel24]

Yea I most likely will have to replace my rotors. I want to replace either the front or the back first to see which one was causing the problem. Rotors, as I've seen are priced around $50 each... pretty high..

[Hennessy Hek]

its usually the front rotors that r effected more since they take most of the stress. I had to change my front rotors

[ThaSleeper]

Originally Posted by ThaSleeper

Not sure if this is the same thing or not, but I know my dad told me that close to 90k he started to feel the ABS in the front. He's redone his brakes and rotors as well. I wouldnt have believed him, but i drove it and felt the same thing. He has an 05 V6 LE with over 100k. I have an 09 V6 LE and havent felt the front do it yet, but i'm keeping an eye out for it. Like I said, im not there 2drive your car and say its the same thing, but maybe some of the other Gen 5/6 owners with high mileage can confirm whether their front brakes do the same slight pulsing when coming to a stop.

Just wanted to clear up my comment. I originally read your post as that you already did all 4 brakes and rotors. If you only did the front, then you definitely need to do the back if you are still feeling a pulsing. Also, the pulsing I was talking about was only a slight feel after the rotors were faced and known to be good. It just happens that the ABS gets more noticeable when coming to a stop with a high mileage GEN 5. Redo all your brakes/rotors and let us know if you still have the same problem. Then you'll be able to determine if its a far worse problem/issue.

[AlmightyCamry777]

I think even though the front rotors were machined they could still have simply warped again. Not all machinists know their stuff and i have seen some turn them down right down to, or even less then, the minimum thickness and simply hand them back to the customer. Unless you mike them and use a dial indicator to check the runout yourself, you'd never know if he did the job right, or not.

The proof is in the performance, ABS is not causing the problem, it is almost certainly the front rotors. I may be accused of wastefulness but i never bother having rotors turned since new ones are only a few dollars more. Even cheap chinese ones are probably better then turned anybody-else's. When the rotors are turned you are removing a lot of metal, metal that's needed by the brakes as heat sink. Less metal means the brakes get hotter faster and thus much morel ikely to warp. So i'd just change the rotors for new ones (not a lot of difference in quality for the average driver, meaning people like me, so i get the cheapies and haven't had any problems whatsoever with them - it's just a hunk of steel!)

It's possible the rear rotors could be warped also but i have worked on thousands of cars over 30 years and i have never seen it. They run much cooler then the rotors in front and so they are much less likely to warp. But if you do change the rotors in front (try and get your money back towards new rotors from the people that did your machine work if you can), and the problem persists, then the other people are correct and the rear rotors may be warped.

The only other things that could cause this is possibly
-a bent wheel or
-broken front end component, or
-bad wheel bearings, but if it were anyof those you would feel it all the time not just while braking. And -

-as the other person suggested, it's also possible that the calipers and pads are sticking in their mounts (both components must be free to move, the rotor run-out is what causes the pads to retract away from the rotor and this is why no return springs are used in Toyota disc brakes).

If you are doing the repair work, clean the pad mounts (the stamped steel inserts) and check that the pads can move freely. If in doubt compare the pads from the other side for thickness, pads on one side thinner then the other side indicates the thinner pads are sticking or the caliper is not free to slide on the pins and they need cleaning and greasing.

It's possible to file the metal backing portion just a little if the pads stick in their mounts, but think twice before filing (refit them and examine all other possibilities first) and do as little filing as possible (none at all being the ideal but sometimes it is necessary). The metal here is extremely soft and files (too) readily so you can remove a lot of backing plate steel very fast if you don't take it easy with the file. Do not use a grinder for this purpose, (a file works perfectly here because you should only be removing one -half mm of metal or less, so really no need at all for a grinder) unless you are very careful, because you can grind the pad into uselessness in one or two seconds if you over-do it!

Inspect the rear rotors, if they are anything but close to perfect with no chips, heat marks, or deep groves then just change them anyway (you can re-use your old pads if they have plenty of lining, but if you choose to re-use them, sand the pads on a flat surface, using fine emery cloth for about 15 seconds first -to break the glaze- and then you are good to go).

[nabeel24]

Yea, I am looking at more than likely changing my front rotors first. Hopefully that will help. Some good ones from Auto-zone here charge 36.99 each so I guess that'll work out just fine.