A mate of mine has a Passat Estate, and he was telling me in the pub how he keeps warping his brake discs every few months. He has all new bushes etc and new wheel bearnings but it keeps doing it. I asked him what discs he was using and he said el cheapo unipart ones as he cant afford to replace OEM so often

I suggested that the unipart discs might be the problem? Or some kind of wheel bearing alignment problem?

What do we think?

 

Shite quality discs is what I think, surely he needs to realise that if he spends that extra £100 or so he could get drilled/grooved aftermarket EBC discs and it would work out cheaper that X many sets of Lidls brakes.

 

Unipart thats the problem fitted them to my old erst as stop gap and they warped in no time

 

But they don't warp, pad material stuck to them is what causes the wobble.
Maybe it's a sticky brake that's the issue, or his driving style.

 

When i had my ST170 the standard ford brakes warped all the time but that was due to driving it like a hooligan lol and getting them glowing like this:-



Also the mondeo i have with similair size 300mm discs, i replaced with genuine ford ones and these are also slightly warped also.

When i had the ST i put tarox discs on and it was fine for 30k with hard braking.

Id def say the cheaper discs wont last long at all.

 

They are warped, he's had a guage on them

 

Seems unanamous that his budget discs are shit then,

I'll get killed if he spends out on some decent ones and it happens again!

 

I have heard that the hubs can warp causing warped disc symptoms.
But isnt he getting the discs under warranty.surely he cant be doing too many miles in this time

 

try getting the disks skimmed on the car, that helps with evo's when the hubs distort.

 

The pad deposits would obviously show runout on the discs....

 

Thats a pretty good idea actually!

 

Driving style can warp /crack discs.

Heavy braking , then standing at traffic lights or junctions with the footbrake on.
The area of disc under the pads doesn't cool as quick as the rest.

.

 

Is he cleaning the hub face before fitting the disc? A small bit of crap under the disc can cause a surprising amount of runout.

 

Poorly balanced wheels can lead to this effect also, but if you say he's had a gague on the discs and they aren't warped then it's probably not the issue

 

I'd go with cheap pads and discs causing the problem. As said, 'warping' is caused by uneven build up of pad deposits on teh discs.

EBC will probably be worse!!

I'd be putting OE ones on for sure!

 

Right, i'm going to tell him to either get them skimmed or to fit OEM discs and pads, making sure the hubface is nice and clean.

Thanks for all the opinions guys

 

Good call, give them a skim then put some decent pads on