Could worn brake pads or rotor issues exacerbate death wobble?

VirtualRussel

VirtualRussel

TJ Enthusiast
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Dec 22, 2015
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Rochester Hills, MI, United States
I was wanting to ask the greater team on the thoughts of brakes being a potential cause of death wobble. The only time I've experienced anything close it happened a few times over a couple of weeks and typically was at highway speeds. Coincidentally (and not as a let's see if this fixes it process) it was time to replace my front pads anyways. I went ahead and replaced the pistons, pads, and rotors on the front (went with the Black Magic Brakes & Concentric Rotors due to a pending 33" tire upgrade) and I've never had an issue since.

Could worn pads and/or issues with the rotors be a cause or exacerbating issue?
 
VirtualRussel said:
I was wanting to ask the greater team on the thoughts of brakes being a potential cause of death wobble. The only time I've experienced anything close it happened a few times over a couple of weeks and typically was at highway speeds. Coincidentally (and not as a let's see if this fixes it process) it was time to replace my front pads anyways. I went ahead and replaced the pistons, pads, and rotors on the front (went with the Black Magic Brakes & Concentric Rotors due to a pending 33" tire upgrade) and I've never had an issue since.

Could worn pads and/or issues with the rotors be a cause or exacerbating issue?
Click to expand...

I'll concede this one to @mrblaine, since I'll bet he sees stuff like this all the time. But, I'll make a new thread out of this so that it doesn't clog this one up.
 
VirtualRussel said:
I was wanting to ask the greater team on the thoughts of brakes being a potential cause of death wobble. The only time I've experienced anything close it happened a few times over a couple of weeks and typically was at highway speeds. Coincidentally (and not as a let's see if this fixes it process) it was time to replace my front pads anyways. I went ahead and replaced the pistons, pads, and rotors on the front (went with the Black Magic Brakes & Concentric Rotors due to a pending 33" tire upgrade) and I've never had an issue since.

Could worn pads and/or issues with the rotors be a cause or exacerbating issue?
Click to expand...
Only if you're confusing a shimmy caused by a braking issue with Death Wobble. Comparing those two is like comparing a runny nose to lung cancer.
 
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This was not a persistent shimmy. In my youth of beer vs car maintenance decisions (with beer typically winning out) I definitely learned what the brake shimmy was. In this case I was on the highway and hit a bump and was well on my way to death wobble but instantly nailed the brakes and worked my way to the shoulder to almost a complete stop before I could drive again. It wasn't blurry vision bad but there was a fair amount of puckering. This happened a couple of more times and I was going to start doing all of the aforementioned troubleshooting steps but, after replacing rotors, calipers, and pads, it never has done it since. Again, I didn't change those to fix the DW-like issues.

I was asking because on the other thread someone asked if brakes could be an exacerbating issue.
 
VirtualRussel said:
I was wanting to ask the greater team on the thoughts of brakes being a potential cause of death wobble. The only time I've experienced anything close it happened a few times over a couple of weeks and typically was at highway speeds. Coincidentally (and not as a let's see if this fixes it process) it was time to replace my front pads anyways. I went ahead and replaced the pistons, pads, and rotors on the front (went with the Black Magic Brakes & Concentric Rotors due to a pending 33" tire upgrade) and I've never had an issue since.

Could worn pads and/or issues with the rotors be a cause or exacerbating issue?
Click to expand...
Yes, it is quite common for rotors with severe cases of DTV to mimic or exhibit symptoms of DW especially in a mild turn like exiting the freeway and lightly applying the brakes. Even more so when the speed drops into the common DW range of 45-55 mph. It won't be exactly DW but the severe shimmy in the steering wheel will be hard to distinguish from actual DW due to the severity of it. If you replace the rotors and it goes away, then that was the problem.
 
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mrblaine said:
Yes, it is quite common for rotors with severe cases of DTV to mimic or exhibit symptoms of DW especially in a mild turn like exiting the freeway and lightly applying the brakes. Even more so when the speed drops into the common DW range of 45-55 mph. It won't be exactly DW but the severe shimmy in the steering wheel will be hard to distinguish from actual DW due to the severity of it. If you replace the rotors and it goes away, then that was the problem.
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Those were the exact symptoms I was experiencing. Good to know for future reference because, while it definitely wasn't DW, it was sure as heck bordering on violent.

BTW, thank you very much for producing Black Magic Brakes. I had gotten to the point with my stock brakes on 31" tires where I couldn't even lock them up no matter how hard I tried. I went with a full replacement of the front braking system (calipers, rotors, & pads) from your site and on the third pass of your break in instructions I scared the piss out of myself locking them up while, what felt like, lightly touching the brakes. Upgrade to 33's and I felt like I had better control than whatever happened to my stock setup.
 
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My LJ had/has a front end shake too. Very similar to what you are describing. Sometimes shook if I hit bumps a certain way, if I stayed under 50mph it didn't really ever shake. Previous owner told me about it, and when I first bought it I could sometimes smell what I thought was brakes . Since I know little, I started searching for answers. There was one guy on an LJ forum that said he had the same symptoms. Found out he had a sticking caliper and that fixed his issue. In my case I figured that I probably had multiple things going on so I decided to start with what I knew for a fact had to be done, then observe the results and do the next thing. I definitely needed front brakes so we did Calipers, pads and rotors. That made a huge difference. Still would shake sometimes but no where near as often. I also needed tires. Just did the rims and tires last week. That made it even better. No shake since but it feels like it still will if the conditions are right. The brakes and worn/out of balance tires definitely played a part in my issues as well though.
 
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