Braking cause pulsating or lurching

I had a bit of a steering wobble when braking so had new front brakes installed and rotors turned. It's been close to 10K miles since but little by little the shimmy/wobble in the steering wheel never really went away and seems to be getting worse. In addition, I now have an intermittent pulsating or lurching when stopping. Not sure if the brakes are just grabbing randomly or something else. It doesn't do it all the time and it's maybe worse when stopping from a faster speed but seems more noticeable the more I slow down.

Thoughts? Thanks.

 

Anyone? Or maybe a mod can move it to the garage forums. Thanks.

 

Do you know if the rotors were warped when you had them turned or did they just take the grooves out? Many shops don't recommend turning rotors as it takes more meat off the rotor and causes them to heat up faster and thus warp faster. My 1G Tundra did this about every 10k miles so I got the 3yr warranty rotors from Oreilly's and just warrantied them out every year.

I would suggest getting new rotors (I put Dynamic Friction on mine) from RockAuto and see if that fixes your problem. Also, make sure you bed the pads before driving the truck as pad material transfer will also make the rotors feel warped and cause uneven braking.

 

I have seen several sets of out or round drums cause the lurching you are talking about. The wobble in the steering is a front rotor issue. If they didn't clean the rust off the back of the rotor, before putting on the brake lathe, it would cut runout into the rotor. I have seen it happen a few times. Plus the rust needs to be cleaned off the hub, where the rotor sits against it. Cutting the rotors on car is the best way to prevent this. As the rotor never comes off, and it cuts out any runout caused by the rust between the rotor and hub surface.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure how they turned the rotors or what other steps they took. I'll take it back and ask and maybe just have them put new rotors on.

The lurching is a fairly recent issue so if the drums are out of round would that be a factory defect or can it happen over time?

 

I have seen drums get out of round as low as 5000 miles. But very few. If it was happening from day one, I'd say it was a defective drum, but because it is a recent issue, I'd say it's not. Many things can warp the drums. Like getting the the brakes really hot, them parking with the park brake on. As they cool the metal will deform and make them out of round.