FAQ: Vibration under braking: warped rotors? NO!

[D.J.]

I also saw the most bargain basement pads and rotors on Rock Auto - like $20 an axle for Bosch pads and $60 an axle for cheap rotors. Part of me just wanted to put them through their paces to see how big of a difference there really was.

I have this curiosity too.

 

[alex_C]

I have been driving around with stock rotors and aftermarket brake pads for the last 7000 miles. It was hell for Stinger and me. If you want to get rid of vibration once and for all get steel braided brake lines. There is only one but, find a good mechanic to get it done. KIA has its own ways to bleed the brakes, trust me you don't wanna do it at home. You will need 3psi pressure at the brake reservoir to run the bleed protocol.
With steel brake lines pedal feels like a million bucks and no vibration at all. I have not changed form the earlier setup. I'm in Orlando area trust me when I say that brakes work hard here.

 

[D.J.]

I have been driving around with stock rotors and aftermarket brake pads for the last 7000 miles. It was hell for Stinger and me. If you want to get rid of vibration once and for all get steel braided brake lines. There is only one but, find a good mechanic to get it done. KIA has its own ways to bleed the brakes, trust me you don't wanna do it at home. You will need 3psi pressure at the brake reservoir to run the bleed protocol.
With steel brake lines pedal feels like a million bucks and no vibration at all. I have not changed form the earlier setup. I'm in Orlando area trust me when I say that brakes work hard here.

You are attributing the pulsations to OEM rubber brake hoses?

Well this is new

 

[I Stung U]

isn't just machining the discs the usual way to smoothen them up ?

 

[alex_C]

You are attributing the pulsations to OEM rubber brake hoses?

Well this is new

It's a combination of weak brake lines (OEM) and (OEM) rotors.
As I mentiond before, I honestly did not notice any difference while driving with aftermarket pads (only) HAWK HPS. At times, the car felt as the vibration under heavy braking was getting out of control.
But, once I got the steel braided lines installed, it was an instant change in pedal feel and braking performance. Almost forgot, I'm running MOTUL 600 racing brake fluid too.
my 5 cents, it was totally worth doing !

 

[MerlintheMad]

It's a combination of weak brake lines (OEM) and (OEM) rotors.
As I mentiond before, I honestly did not notice any difference while driving with aftermarket pads (only) HAWK HPS. At times, the car felt as the vibration under heavy braking was getting out of control.
But, once I got the steel braided lines installed, it was an instant change in pedal feel and braking performance. Almost forgot, I'm running MOTUL 600 racing brake fluid too.
my 5 cents, it was totally worth doing !

I love it when outlier theories arise. Since pulsating/shuddering brakes could be a complex of causes, this one sounds very plausible as a remedy. Now, we wait ...

 

[5tinger]

The question remains.
Has Kia officially addressed and remedied this problem?
The general consensus is that the vibrations are caused by deposits left on the rotors by the pads.

Why hasn't Kia updated the pads already?
From what I understand the softer pads used for EU models (more agressive braking and dust) don't exhibit this issue?

 

[RogueIV]

The question remains.
Has Kia officially addressed and remedied this problem?
The general consensus is that the vibrations are caused by deposits left on the rotors by the pads.

Why hasn't Kia updated the pads already?
From what I understand the softer pads used for EU models (more agressive braking and dust) don't exhibit this issue?

Not really no. We don't really have an accurate way of polling the actual % of cars with this issue and it may not be enough for the manufacturer to really care about.

It has to do with sample size of the issue compared to how many cars are actually out there. Only a very small amount of the owner base use forums and the ones that do come to the forums are either into the cars or searching to a fix to an issue they're having. If you goto any car forum you'd see a lot of threads asking about issues winch will give you a false sense that the problems are more widespread than they may actually be. There's a lot of people that just use cars as an appliance, even the Stinger.

Personally, I have not had this pulsating brake issue and I'm approaching 1 year of ownership next month with over 14k miles currently. But I'm easier on my brakes than most. (I got nearly 80k miles on the OE brakes of my WRX that I owned previously before I preemptively changed them.)

 

[RM7]

This sounds like a harmonic resonance issue, being blamed on everything else under the sun. It's not an unheard of problem for pads to vibrate back and forth (sideways, in their direction of movement) very fast under braking and if the frequency is just right, as determined by all the other components, this can propagate and cause the rotors to vibrate and create pulsing/vibrations during braking. Basically, when brakes are applied and they contact the rotor, instead of making solid contact, they "bounce" off rapidly. On my old old 2010 Camaro SS the stock brembo brakes came with "roller skate wheels" on the brake pads. They were dynamic weights added to the pads to change the vibration frequency to eliminate the vibration/squealing.



I deal with this problem off and on in mountain biking. Certain brake setups can get wicked bad pulsating in the brakes from the same issue. Unfortunately, there's usually no sure shot to fix it, users report changing brakes, rotors, or calipers can solve it, but there's no guarantee that the new part will change the frequency enough to eliminate it. Obvious suspects are the mounts themselves and what the mount is mounted to, as in it being beefy and stiff enough, but those can be the hardest thing to "change". It's hard to solve the problem and sometimes people go through all sorts of different pads trying to fix it, when you need to something more aggressive to change the frequency. Sometimes pads or some other random change does solve it, but you just can't know if it will be a sure shot ahead of time. Some have added dynamic weights to the calipers themselves. This too is not uncommon in the automotive world. There are stick-on weights you can try to see if you can change the frequency enough.

 

[TheBullet]

The question remains.
Has Kia officially addressed and remedied this problem?
The general consensus is that the vibrations are caused by deposits left on the rotors by the pads.

Why hasn't Kia updated the pads already?
From what I understand the softer pads used for EU models (more agressive braking and dust) don't exhibit this issue?

The EU models have that issue too. I'm from Spain, I have a 2020 Stinger GT 4wd, and it also has that issue. I changed rotors and breaking pads once and after 7000kms it's happening again.

 

[MerlintheMad]

The EU models have that issue too. I'm from Spain, I have a 2020 Stinger GT 4wd, and it also has that issue. I changed rotors and breaking pads once and after 7000kms it's happening again.

Welcome, across the Pond. The European incidence of shuddering brakes is far less frequently mentioned; so, there must be some other factor involved besides brake pads.

 

[Ron]

I've had the same brake problems with my 2018 GT2, i had the rotors and pads done twice and i now own a 2021 GT2 and just had the rotors and pads done at 12000 miles.
Its a recurring problem and Kia is aware of it.

 

[BadTrainDriver]

I've had the same brake problems with my 2018 GT2, i had the rotors and pads done twice and i now own a 2021 GT2 and just had the rotors and pads done at 12000 miles.
Its a recurring problem and Kia doesn't care if it happens.

Fixed!

 

[EBC Brakes]

EBC Brakes would like to apologise for it’s non supply of front and rear pads for the Stinger of late, some are being airfreighted to the USA in ten days time in Red and Yellow for fast street and some of the Blue NDX trackday pads are also due.

The race pads in RP-1 and RP-X will soon be added to the pad line up for the stinger, due in 45 days.

Thank you

 

[WRXtoStingerGT]

I've had the same brake problems with my 2018 GT2, i had the rotors and pads done twice and i now own a 2021 GT2 and just had the rotors and pads done at 12000 miles.
Its a recurring problem and Kia is aware of it.

That's what I was told at two different dealerships while they each explained to me that they had seen the issue many (many) times from different 3.3L owners.

Fixed!

lmfao so true!

 

[laynevans]

I have been driving around with stock rotors and aftermarket brake pads for the last 7000 miles. It was hell for Stinger and me. If you want to get rid of vibration once and for all get steel braided brake lines. There is only one but, find a good mechanic to get it done. KIA has its own ways to bleed the brakes, trust me you don't wanna do it at home. You will need 3psi pressure at the brake reservoir to run the bleed protocol.
With steel brake lines pedal feels like a million bucks and no vibration at all. I have not changed form the earlier setup. I'm in Orlando area trust me when I say that brakes work hard here.

I'm going to get this done! Got a track day coming up and hoping this could help really bad vibrations I get. Plus double checking my discs are not warped. Got some EBC yellow stuff that I used briefly in the past but had really bad vibration with them so took them straight off. Will give them another shot once the brakes lines are upgraded.

 

[G-731016]

So here’s my experience,
I started noticing the vibration around ~18K and got worst day by day. I looked for a set of after markets front/rear and pads but they were all sold out. So, I bought a pair of factory front rotors and installed them without changing my pads. ~%70 of the vibration went away right of the bat but was still there. After driving the car for ~800 miles I can tell you that it’s gone away completely and there’s no more vibration (the pads must have been worn unevenly). My guess is that my new rotors will be good for another ~15K or so and by then I get a good set of front/rear rotors with EBC red and get rid of the factory stuff

 

[SpaceGhost]

Had my brakes front brakes changed by a local mechanic. The first rotors warped within a hundred miles. He put on a different rotor and it went away but now the shudder is back 5K miles later. Looking for examples of pad/rotor combinations that don't shudder. Or if someone knows of a shop in MA/RI area that has successfully fixed this problem.

 

[RM7]

Had my brakes front brakes changed by a local mechanic.

Which calipers did you go with, or new factory ones?

 

[SpaceGhost]

Which calipers did you go with, or new factory ones?

The calipers weren't changed. They are brembo which I thought is supposed to be good. The first set of rotors that warped immediately were raybestos. The current rotors are kia. Not sure what kind of pads. Does it matter? I guess that's why I'm asking. It's summer I can change them myself and would like to know of examples of rotor/pad combinations that have not started shuddering within 20K miles. Really it should be 30-40K miles but I'll take 20