Steering wheel shaking, alignment, and brake questions

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

I have a 2000 Corolla CE with 48k miles. When braking hard, the pedal vibrates and the brake performance was not that good.

So I had the mechanic replace the front calipers (L&R), both brake pads on front, and rear drums.

After that, when braking, the pedal vibrates…but not that much.

So I had the mechanic replace the front rotors (L&R).

Now, when braking, the performance is good and it does not vibrate.

However, if I brake really hard…there is a little bit of pedal vibration AND shaking steering wheel. My car also needs an alignment since it pulls to the left (will get one on Friday).

Do you think the shaking steering wheel and the slight pedal vibration is due to the alignment or maybe the rear rotors need to be replaced? When traveling at 70mpg, sometimes the steering wheel slightly (very slightly) shakes…my guess this the tires need to be balance/alignment.

2

You don’t have rotors on the back if you have drum brakes back there. I doubt your calipers should have been replaced, just the rotors and pads.

While having the alignment done, ask them to make sure your ball joints, tie rods, and wheel bearings are all ok.

Rebalancing your front tires should make the 70 mph shaking go away, or you could try putting the rear tires up front and see what that does.

3

First off, you don’t have rotors on the rear of the car, you have drums. You already said the rear drums were replaced at your request in sentence #2. Why you asked for this is unclear. Replacing the front rotors, as could be expected, pretty much cured the vibration unless you brake really hard. Since the car pulls left, it could very well have worn the front tires in a manner that now causes them the vibrate a little bit. Be sure it is a 4-wheel alignment because these cars need that.

When you have the alignment, have the front wheels checked for balance BEFORE they pull the weights off. Since your car is pulling left, you may have hit a curb or pothole on that side. Spinning up the wheel to check for balance will show if you have a bent wheel. A bent wheel will give a small vibration at speed and under very hard braking.

Post back if that doesn’t fix it.