Originally Posted by guitman32

You need to re-bed your pads and rotors. Do two full cycles which should take care of the uneven deposits on the rotors you describe, an in turn hopefully get rid of your vibrations.

A stuck piston wont cause vibration or pulsating in itself, only a steering pull and overheating which can then lead to warping and uneven deposits, possibly causing vibration.

If re-bedding doesnt fix the pulsating, then likely your rotors are warped.

Originally Posted by guitman32

You need to re-bed your pads and rotors. Do two full cycles which should take care of the uneven deposits on the rotors you describe, an in turn hopefully get rid of your vibrations.

A stuck piston wont cause vibration or pulsating in itself, only a steering pull and overheating which can then lead to warping and uneven deposits, possibly causing vibration.

If re-bedding doesnt fix the pulsating, then likely your rotors are warped.

Originally Posted by guitman32

Wouldnt bother removing and scuffing, thats more for getting proper bedding layer between the pad and and a used rotor, but will not do anything that a couple of bed-in cycles wont already do in terms of removing surface deposits on the rotor surface that may be causing vibrations.

Originally Posted by sry110

Thanks for the suggestion, I will surely consider those pads! I'm pretty set on Centric blank rotors this time around as they should not give me any problems, and should be easier to resurface (versus slotted rotors) if I ever needed to at some point.



I remember back in ~2011 when I had the Brembos installed, I was on my way back from the shop that did the install and applied the brakes and they grabbed very severely and then seemed to let go. I was not going through a bed-in process but should have been (I wasn't thinking about the fact that the shop did not take the car our for a test drive / bed-in drive after installing the fresh rotors). The pads were lightly-used OEM Brembo pads that came with the calipers. It's possible that at that time the OEM Brembo pads left a patch on the rotors....but I can't remember if the vibration/pulsation issue started at that time or soon after.

Later I swapped the OEM Brembo dusters for StopTech Street Performance pads, which I currently have on the car. IIRC the problem intensified (if not started altogether) with these pads.

Another possible cause for the problem is that most times after I wash the car, I pull it right back into the garage where it will often sit 1-2 weeks before I move it again. The pads become noticeably stuck to the rotors, like I have to slip the clutch a bit giving it gas to break the bond between the pads and rotors the next time I drive it. I'm thinking I need to do the following:

* Replace all 4 rotors
* Leave StopTech street perf. pads in place (they only have ~3000 miles on them)
* Execute proper bedding-in process
* Take car for a drive after each washing to remove any residual water from the pad-disc interface before putting the car back into short-term storage.

Honestly, one of the reasons I rarely drive the car is because the brakes feel so unsettling. I would like to start enjoying the car again so maybe putting in this time+money will pay off.