front end was shaking, steering wheel shakes & brakes are shaking, got the tires balanced & rotated & that helped a lot. alignment is fine but still a very minor shake in the steering wheel and in brakes…now what? i’ve got a 2007 civic with 49K miles on it, never had brakes changed or rotors turned, is it time or is it something else??? HELP!!
is it only shaking when braking? If not, you still have a balance issue most likely. I just had new tires put on my car and it took the shop several times to get the balance right. Poorly trained technicians who don’t care about their job can lead to “fixed” issues not having actually been fixed.
If it is your brakes, just replace the rotors. Turning them is a waste, because now that they’re thinner they’ll just warp again, faster.
it was only shaking when braking so i took it in to have the tires rotated & balanced. the shaking got worse & was doing it all the time. took it back in (to another place) and they said the tires weren’t balanced so they did it. the shaking in the steering wheel is very very minimal but brakes are shaking/vibrating when braking. maybe new brakes?? new rotors 'huh? what does that run? I need a good honest mechanic!!! ahhhhhhhh
Don’t waste your time and money having the rotors turned. If they are the source of the problem, then you need to replace them. If you turn them, the issue will come back shortly.
Loosen your front wheel lug nuts and then tighten them gradually to the specification using a torque wrench with each wheel raised off of the ground, of course. This helped a lot to reduce brake pulsation on my car.
New rotors will probably run you in the neighborhood of $250-350. You should only have to replace the fronts. The rears do only about 30% of the braking and so they don’t take anywhere near the abuse the fronts do.
Try to get your mechanic to replace the rotors with something good, like Brembo, and not some cheap NAPA junk. That’ll help avoid premature warpage in the future.
Rotors are not terribly expensive, and your current rotors are probably not even serviceable any more. Even if they are, you may save $50-60 on the job reusing your factory rotors and most likely have the problem return in short order, only to have to buy the rotors anyway and pay labor again to have them installed. You might as well do it right now and be done with it for another three years. Otherwise it’s “pay me now or pay me later.”