I have needed my front rotors replaced 3 times within the past year. My car develops a shimmy where the steering wheel vibrates when braking at speeds above 45 mph. Each time I bring it in, Tesla service tells me the front rotors are warped and replaces. The last set lasted less than two months before this started to occur again. I asked what the underlying issue is and they didn’t have any answers. I am a conservative driver and 95% of my driving is on the highway. Any idea what’s going on?
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Warped rotors
- Thread starter Cbmd81
- Start date
zoomer0056
Active Member
I don't have any idea why the rotors warp so easily and this the first I've read about it. Maybe use regen more to reduce warp. With posts like this its helpful to mention the car specs.
It’s a 2017 75d with about 80,000 miles. Tires were replaced about 1 year ago. Let me know if you need any more info.
zoomer0056
Active Member
That's very curious. You've had the car for six years and 80k miles and the rotors were replaced 3 times in just year 2023. Puzzling.
What's often referred to as "warping" isn't actually that. That used to happen when rotors were much thinner and unventilated and reached a very high temperature, but that's not going to happen to MX discs on the road.
The common causes are corrosion building up, or in colder climates where the brakes get wet and then freeze overnight so some of the pad material breaks off. In both cases you can get high spots on the rotor which then gets worse over time and feels like a pulsing sensation or vibration when braking.
Have you got any photos of your rotors so we can see the state of them when this was happening? What's the climate like where you are?
The common causes are corrosion building up, or in colder climates where the brakes get wet and then freeze overnight so some of the pad material breaks off. In both cases you can get high spots on the rotor which then gets worse over time and feels like a pulsing sensation or vibration when braking.
Have you got any photos of your rotors so we can see the state of them when this was happening? What's the climate like where you are?
fholbert
Active Member
Rotors warp because they overheat. Cause:
- Resting foot on the brake pedal. People swear they don't, but follow them and their brake lights are always on.
- Aggressive braking.
- Dragging brakes on a long downhill, even a long downhill off-ramp.
- After an aggressive stop, light turned yellow, holding position with brakes. Let the car creep so the hot pads move to another part of the rotor.
1. Teslas will throw warning message if you press both pedals at the same time
2. Aggressive braking is fine as long as you don't do it repeatedly and don't give them time to cool off without bringing the car to a halt. (You will also get a brake overheat warning message in a Tesla long before the discs are actually damaged in any way)
3. Why would you drag brakes downhill when you have regen?
4. One hard stop is not going to overheat the rotors unless it's from well over 100mph to 0 emergency braking.
No, Tesla rotors are not thinner than an ICE car, if anything they are slightly beefier to account for the additional weight an EV carries with the battery pack.
Tesla rotors are not the most efficient in the world as dissipating heat. The vane design could be better, but they are on a par with the majority of other cars out there.
This is not "warping" caused by overheating as I said earlier. There are other reasons vibrations can build up in braking systems. The Tesla SC isn't trying to diagnose the underlying cause, they are just replacing parts and giving an opinion which can sometimes be wrong.
A bit like the BMW service centre who told my partner she has cooked the clutch in her 3-series and replaced it only to find the problem was still there. In fact, synchromesh had gone on 2nd gear as I told her when I drove it before she booked it in. So they had to admit their error and replace the gearbox. Service centres don't get it right all the time.
BrendonHolt
Member
I heard this once on car talk. Person kept going through brake pads. Finally said it happens every time we take the Truck over the mountains. The brakes warped because they were Extremely hot and washed right after.
Having water hit your brakes when they are hot will warp them, but they have to be very hot, from extreme driving or more to the point extreme braking.
A funny segment from the puzzler:
https://www.cartalk.com/radio/puzzler/pulsing-brakes
Bottom line, washing your car, especially a heavy high performance SUV that weighs a lot after driving hard, terrible idea, like stopping at a Car Wash after driving the freeway/highway and braking hard.
Having water hit your brakes when they are hot will warp them, but they have to be very hot, from extreme driving or more to the point extreme braking.
A funny segment from the puzzler:
https://www.cartalk.com/radio/puzzler/pulsing-brakes
Bottom line, washing your car, especially a heavy high performance SUV that weighs a lot after driving hard, terrible idea, like stopping at a Car Wash after driving the freeway/highway and braking hard.
My hunch is that it’s not anything I am doing and the service center is just taking the path of least resistance for them rather than take a deep dive
zoomer0056
Active Member
The fact that it happens fairly soon after replacement makes me think it's caliper related. Maybe a sticky piston that's overheating a pad. We'd need to see the old rotor to see if there were any pad deposits on the rotors. I don't think it's a half shaft or anything like that since it appears to correlate with braking, and the fact that the vibration has gone away after replacement. Hard to say without more information.
zoomer0056
Active Member
Good deduction. I've rebuilt ICE calipers before. Tesla can't just be blindly replacing rotors, three times without thinking. Must be more to the story.
Unfortunately there’s not more to the story. Each time I bring it in, they are able to reproduce the issue, then the report just says “rotors inspected and found to be warped”. They replace the rotors and it improves for a brief period and then it starts again. I asked the service center for some answers yesterday and they really weren’t able to provide any. So, it does seem like they are blindly replacing rotors. Do I have any other recourse to escalate this for a more thorough look?
Take the car to an indy. It's not rocket science. Telsa's MO is to replace, not fix. It's part of their commitment to sustainability /s
Here’s a dumb question - do I need to find an indy that specializes in tesla or can any indy shop handle this?
BobX
Member
I agree with the above. Changing the rotors regularly is treating the sympton not the cause. I am going with sticking pistons in the calipers. Are they warped on both sides of the car, I am guessing that the SC replaces both sides even time. Highly unusual for calipers to cause problems on both sides of the car at the same time.
Easy to diagnose, just put your finger on the disc after driving a bit without using the brakes and see if they're warm.
Sticking pistons isn't going to get them hot enough to damage the rotors though and the SC would have to remove the calipers to change the rotors so they would have picked up on it. It's not that.
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