Any harm in warped rotors

Service shop diagnosed thumping noise under light braking as warped rotors. Had been machined once before. Any harm in continuing to drive without replacing them?

If you drive in snowy and slippery conditions the warped rotors will make braking tricky and can make the car more difficult to control when braking. Eventually the warping may get to a point where the car “shutters” significantly when braking and this reduces traction, braking efficeny, and wears out front end components prematurely.

Even w/out slippery conditions, your stopping power is not as good as it ought to be. Add to that, as noted by Uncle Turbo, that it will beat up other front end parts.

These are your brakes - and if the diagnosis is correct they aren’t working right. Get it fixed.

“the rotors had been machined once before”.

My take on this is the rotors are too thin to hold the tolerance allowed now and likely need to be replaced.

How long ago were the rotors machined and were the brake pads replaced and ‘mated’ at the time?

Brakes are probably the most important saftey feature on any road-going vehicle. One would think that if there is a problem with them, it should be corrected ASAP.

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2627997,Thank you for your quick reply. Out of curiosity is there much difference between different types of rotors and is there any one best suited for a car parked outside 24/7 and driven in everyday city and hwy traffic?,Re: Re: any harm in warped rotors,
2627999,"If the rear tail light and rear turning signals are separate bulbs, then replace the front bulb for the turning signals on the right side. It should be a dual filament bulb (one filament is for the parking lights). If the rear tail light and turning signal share the same bulb, change this bulb as well.

If this doesn’t work, you are only out the cost of two light bulbs ($5.00 or so). This is the easy part. Next, check for a bad ground if changing the bulbs doesn’t do the trick.

I have driven thousands of miles with slightly warped rotors in all four seasons with no problem other than annoying brake pedal pulsation and stops with a pulsating feel. Another way of describing that is rapidly changing braking power but only at low speeds, not at higher speeds. I suppose if I felt the pulsating at higher speeds, that could mean heavily warped rotors which apparently I did not have.

I don’t, however, recall hearing any thumping noise.

In July 07 all rotors resurfaced and pads replaced. In 02/08 rear brake pads replaced front rotors resurfaced.

Any harm in continuing to drive without replacing them?

Yes.

Resurfacing the front rotors twice is unusual. At this point they could just be too thin which makes them more likely to warp.

You didn’t mention the number of miles between these brake services and the mileage on the CRV now. It seems you have brake work often in terms of months, 9 months between brake work. Do you live in West Virginia, or San Francisco? My guess is you need to brake heavily frequently.

If you live in the mountains lots of downhill braking can be tough on pads and rotors. You mention heavy city traffic, that means a lot of stop and go driving. Perhaps you “go” a bit much and have to stop with a heavy foot on the brakes as well.

Can you make some adjustments to your city driving? Coasting more, applying the brakes earlier and using less pressure to stop can go a long way to reducing the load on your brakes meaning less warping of rotors and longer intervals between brake pad replacement.

There are different manufacturers of rotors. If you are on ebay you can see a number of rotors you can buy for your CRV. The problem is where do these things come from? Some are quality rotors, and some might be junk. At this point I don’t have any personal experience with buying rotors on ebay.

Only you know how bad it is. Put aside some money for the work. If only the front or back are warped, get those done and wait on the others. Replace the rotors since they have been machined once.

Try to get quality rotors. Some rotors now available are poor quality and can warp easily. A few years ago you could count on the Chinese manufactured ones to be bad. I believe they have improved, but still have some poor ones as do some other countries.

I will also add that once they have been machined down to minimum thickness, they can’t safely be further machined. Many cars today call for light weight rotors that don’t handle machining well.

With this type of question I answer that I could drive forever with a pulsating brake pedal on any type of surface,the problem comes when I must make a judgement if you could also.

It is a bit of a roll of the dice when you are trying to find rotors that won’t warp.

In general, warping rotors are caused by non-uniform metal composition in the rotor, but flaws in the hub and uneven torquing of wheel lugs can also cause problems. Anything that causes heat to transfer to the hub unevenly.

Some types of vehicles seem to be more prone to warping rotors more than others due to differences in the design of the hubs.

My most recent experiences were - Purchased NAPA rotors for '91 Volvo. They had three price points, I chose the mid-grade. Bad choice. Two of the four rotors warped, but I am still using them (cheapskate). More recently I bought four Mexican-made (red box) Brembo rotors for '97 BMW. No problems, so a month ago I put four more of the same on my other '97 BMW.

Very Good Jean Luke.

Also expect the replace the pads much more often as the warped rotors will wear them out faster.

It’s a matter of degrees. After a while, it is my opinion, ALL rotors warp slightly. We learn to live with it, that slight rumble during braking, especially at high speeds or heavy loads…If the rumble is noticeable to everyone in the car you should probably do something about it. If only the driver is somewhat aware of it, it’s not that big an issue…Brake rotors seem to be an area where maintaining quality control during the manufacturing process has always been a problem. Half the cars on the road have “warped Rotors” to some degree…When it gets bad enough so that the entire vehicle trembles during hard braking, it becomes a safety issue and you should do something about it…If you learn how to replace the pads and rotors yourself, you can save serious money.