My 01 Suburban 1500 has an issue when stepping on the brakes. It pulsates to a point that I can see my foot moving while on the brake pedal. The ABS light comes on when starting the engine, but turns off and stays off. My first guess was that it was a warped rotor, so I replaced the front ones along with the pads, but the pulsing continues. The rear brakes have 34,000 miles on them but look OK, but I will probably take them off next. But this guesswork is costly with no return so far. What else could it be?

 

What do you have; rear rotors or drums?
warped front rotors transmit primariliy thru the steering wheel and some thru the brake pedal
warped rear rotors transmit thru the brake pedal...Its possible to be something other than rear rotors but warped rotors are the most common cause. I've seen warped rotors and out of round drums right out of the box. 30 000 is plenty of time for runout to occur.

 

 

I have rotors. I replaced the rears and the pulsating went away. I also replaced the rear dust plates while I was at it with two piece dust plates so that I wouldn't have to pull the axle. My intention was to also reinstall parking brakes that were removed previously but whoever did the work snapped off a small bolt that holds the parking brake shoe guide in place. To get that broken bolt out would require that axle to be removed. I live in Illinois, and the parking brake shoes are back at the parts store.

 

can you not just unbolt mount without axle removal? I tack welded the bracket in place and was going to repair it later. the tack weld held up so I never replaced or extracted the broken bolt.