Solatso

Hi Everyone,
New to the forums and to Lexus and I'm having an issue with my wife's RX330. Here's a little background; a few weeks back she was having trouble with the steering wheel shaking A LOT at highway speeds and a "pulsing" feeling when braking , she also complained about a "burning smell". Had an alignment done, rotated the tires, replaced front pads (they were worn to nothing) and had the front rotors resurfaced. Everything was fine until the other day when she says it's starting to happen again. She tells me it only happens on the highway and it doesn't always happen.

Any thought on what it could be before I end up at the dealer? I was thinking maybe the calipers were seizing but what's the likelihood of BOTH front calipers going at the same time (since both set of pads and rotors were worn the first time). Also would the brake booster be something to look into? My uncle is a mechanic and says he's seen brake boosters get "stuck" on Lincolns.

Thanks in advance for any help and advise.

salimshah

Sticking calipers is a warranty issue and is abnormal condition.

Worn pads is normal.

Warped rotors is also a warranty issue and can happen based on environment (hot and cold cycle ... hot rotors and going puddles etc).

Grooved rotors due to worn pads is negligence and poor care.

So if under warranty ... go to the dealer.

Sticking brakes can be due to bad brake fluid.
You can tell sticking brake problems by having bad mpg. The wheel will be abnormally hot near the hub/center ... compare with other side.

Shaking at 50mph or more and always at the same mph (without braking) is wheel or tire issue.

If you had the rotors turned, they will warp sooner.

Salim

metal

All of above is correct. I would go back to the people that did your brake work and have it checked out...

cdnewton

You don't say what year your RX is, but there was a TSB for the front brakes on the 2004 model RX's. If yours is a 2004, when you had the rotors turned, it was just a matter of time before it returned.

arima

i had the same problem on a different car, the rotors are warped. Cutting rotors hardly works especially on big rotors.

Solatso

Thanks for all the input everyone, I appreciate it. My uncle is going to take a look at it tomorrow but chances are we'll end up at the dealer.

Oh yeah it's a 2006, we've had it for about a year now.

Grumpa72

As suggested, this could easily be warped rotors. If your uncle has the equipment, have him check the rotor for runout. A rotor, when viewed from the front or rear, can have a very small wobble from side to side. This wobble, or runout, can be huge at highway speeds and can make a nice car a pain to ride in. Many new cars have rotors so thin that they can only stand minor resurfacing, which is really nothing more than cutting the rotor on a lathe to take the runout to as close to zero as possible. The problem is that the rotors are then so thin that they can easily be warped again.

Sticking calipers? Here is a test I do - after you have driven the car, and assuming you don't live in a really hilly place where you are using lots of braking, test your calipers with the car parked. Go to each wheel and put your hand (lightly and anticipating high temps) on to the hub. If you have a dragging caliper, it will generate huge amounts of heat, even if it is only partially sticking. Most brake pads float which means that they keep a light floating contact with the caliper. If the caliper is sticking, the heat generated by it will be transmitted to the aluminum wheel. I had an Acura with one caliper sticking and it was easily 100 degrees hotter than the other three. Again, use caution because if it is sticking, it can easily be at 300 degrees!

Solatso

I'm leaning towards a sticking caliper now. My wife drove it on Saturday and when she came home I washed it. When I hit the wheels with the hose the right front wheel (which was way dirtier than the others) steamed like crazy as soon as the cold water hit it. None of the other wheels did that, also when I popped it in reverse to move the car down the driveway a bit it didn't budge at all until I gave it some gas where as normally it would start rolling as soon as I let off the brake. Once I gave it some gas I stopped and tried again and this time when I let off the brake it rolled on it's own.

We'll see what the dealer says, hopefully it's just a stuck caliper and they cover it under warranty. This particular dealer is a bit of a pain when it comes to admitting something is wrong with the car. They're giving us all kinds of trouble with the passenger side mirror because they say it's not supposed to go down much when the car is in reverse but I've personally seen it go down way more when we bought it then it currently is. They also wanted $400 to replace a headlight bulb I laughed and just did it myself, which was a pain because it's a tight area to work with but I don't know what the heck is $400 about it.

Solatso

Little update on my issue :

Took it to the dealer and they wanted to machine the rotors again. They even went so far as to tell me that "it doesn't look like anything was done" when I said I had it done two weeks ago. I told them to put new ones on and that's what they're doing so if the problem persists even with new rotors I think I'm gonna flip my $%^. I spent like 15 minutes arguing with them on the phone about what's been done and that this keeps happening so I'm gonna play their game this time and if still happens someone is in a heap of crap. They're also still arguing about the mirror issue. The guy told me "there's some controversy in the shop about how far they should go down". He even said "as a Lexus dealer you'd think we would know these things" In my head I'm like YEAH YOU'D THINK!

We'll see what happens, I'm getting kinda ticked off at this point. Sometimes I feel like they're talking at me and not to me.

Solatso

The saga continues.

Well after a brand new set of rotors, the car is still having the same issue. I'm convinced it's a caliper issue but I can't figure out why they won't even check that. They're bringing out a loaner and picking up the RX on Wednesday so we'll see what they say THIS time. If it wasn't for the burning hot wheel and the obvious fact that one wheel is basically black from brake dust when the other 3 are still nice and clean I would think it was something else.

We'll see what they come back at me with on Wednesday, if it's a caliper issue they owe me a bunch of money for charging me for the rotors. I'm sure that will be another issue in itself. Can't wait

Grumpa72

Solatso,
I am confused here. You described absolutely classic symptoms of a failed/failing caliper when you talked about your wheel steaming "like crazy" when washed. Btw, it doesn't matter whether you used cold or hot water - the temperature differential is enough that the water is going to steam immediatly.

Here's a suggestion, take a technician with you on a nice 30 minute drive with lots of stopping and starting. Hopefully you have an area with hills. Drive in a spirited but not crazy manner and then, after the 30 minutes is up, stop at a car wash and spray the wheels!

I am only a shade tree mechanic but the steaming dirty wheel is screaming at you! Are you going to listen?

Solatso

Like I said before I don't know why they won't look at the caliper, I've argued with them about it and they insisted it couldn't be the caliper because it "wouldn't cause vibration while driving"

At any rate they're picking up the car tomorrow and dropping off a loaner so the guy will get a chance to drive it for about 20-30 minutes and with any luck they'll quit jerking me around and just take care of it since the caliper is covered under warranty. If it wasn't gonna be a warranty issue I would have just taken it to my indy shop and had them replace the caliper.

salimshah

As long as the dealer acknowledges the problem, dont spend your effort diagnosing for them. Just leave you vehicle with them till they have it fixed.


Salim

Solatso

Well they just called and said that the caliper is seizing up

I'm thinking to myself, no kidding huh? So you should have just listened to me the first time around.

At any rate they're gonna fix it and it's covered under the CPO however I probably won't see any compensation for them replacing the rotors the first time. My boss has a friend who's a service manager for Toyota and he was saying that there is a clause in the CPO that states if a warranty item breaks a non-warranty item the non-warranty item still isn't covered.

He did say that one thing I have going for me is that they didn't diagnosis the problem correctly the first time so I may be able to squeeze them a little for that but I'm pretty much boned on the full cost of the rotor replacement.

I'll be talking to the Lexus service manager tomorrow about (he's not in today) so we'll see if I'm able to get anywhere. At least the car will be fixed.

salimshah

Expect this as an answer ...
During diagnosis we follow a procedure and we found the rotors to be out of spec. Then it lead us to bad caliper.

Does bad caliper give you warped rotors? Worn out pads yes but worn out rotors would be hard to sell.

Good luck.

Salim