rich_ncal

After driving downlong down hill sections of twisting roads, I am getting a vibration while braking. I am certain the one or more of the rotors is warping when hot. There are 19K miles on my 2007 Impala LT.

Is this a warranty repair?

Has anyone tried cross drilled or slotted rotors? I have tried drilled and slotted rotors on a few Fords that had similar problems and it fixed the issue.

Are other Impala owners having this problem? I was surprised to see the 2007 SS uses the same stock rotors. I would think this would be a bigger problem for the SS.

rbarrios

We have an 07 3LT.
we just hit 19,200 miles. Its my girlfriends daily driver.
Ive told her to drive easy and to look ahead and coast to stops etc.
So she doesnt abuse the car- nor does she drive hills.
the brakes are doing well. no vibration of any sort.
One thing Ive always been wary of and I dont know if this is true- is not to have HOT rotors and then drive thru puddles of water....
I have also heard of other Impala owners complain about their rotors/brakes pulsating at an early life.....
then again- I also hear Trailblazer owners complain of their rotors warping at an early life....but I still have my factory rotors on my trailblazer and I dont have pulsating... Im not at 126,300 miles on the factory rotors. Sometimes its due to aggresive driving I think.
other times due to the conditions youre in (hilly) that help contribute to the warping..

but- for comparisons sake- here at our tires at 17K. these are the factory tires. very little wear.

rich_ncal

I called my local Chevrolet dealer service department. He said if it was due to the brakes dragging it would be a warranty repair but if it is due to the brakes over heating it is not. He said he needs to inspect the brakes to tell. Sound like the service department has a standard answer for this. So it tells me this in a known problem.

Strange he did not mention bad wheel lug nut torque as a possible issue. But then the only shop that has rotated the tires on this car is the dealer. On other cars I had this problem after I let someone mount new tires or rotate my tires. One reason I often rotate my own tires.

My guess is Ford, Cheyand some othersgo for low weight in the rotors on passenger cars to get the better gas mileage, reducing the rotor thickness to keep the rotating weight low.

The service depart did think it would be a good idea to use cross drilled rotors as replacements to keep the heat down, but also said there would be no warranty on the brake system with aftermarket parts.

Iam not an aggressivedriver. So I wouldthink many others have this problem with the Impalabrake rotors.

rbarrios

i totally forgot about places that use impact whrenches and just tighthen the heck out of those nuts.
Good places use color coded pieces that will start to twist when they reach a certain torque rating...
Ive never seen them in person- but have seen pics.