Ok so i was complaning about a huge knocking sound coming from the back of my car. The noise went away when i pressed the breaks, and i noitced only happened when the breaks were wet for some reason. So i brought it to the dealer and it was because the back rotors were warped. I dont abuse the car that much lol and im not that hard on the breaks . Anyway my question is how did this happen at only 5500 miles?

 

It may have sat for a while before you got it and now you just happen to notice. Typically if brakes are going to warp under heavy braking it will be the front rotors. Unless, did you bed your brakes when you got it?

 

well I'm having a noise in my front brakes, at 8500 only and it only happens when i brake at low speeds and i had same problem with my previous 6th gen max at 15,000 they had to cut the rotors... this might be de same problem.....weird

 

I asked the mechanic at the nissan dealership the same question, wouldnt the front ones be warped first, but he didnt have an answer for me......What do you mean by bed my breaks , i dont get it?

 

For some reason nissan suffervfrom this problem, my sister has a 07 altima and she had de same problem... in my case i have bigger wheels which does required havier braking, i will upgrade to the big brake system in a few months and see if dat may stop.....

 

Sorry about that. Bedding brakes is a term used when installing new rotors and pads. It means more or less heating the rotors and the pads up (heavy heavy braking over and over) so that they will clean the surface and allow the pads to melt to the rotor surface angles to get maximum coverage. That even confused me a little, I think I am overthinking this, if anyone has a better explanation please go ahead

Edit: If you did this excessively and heated up the rotors too much you could warp the rotors.

 

If I had to guess, I'd say that the most common cause of warpage is from over/unequally tightened lug nuts.

And yes, it does happen from the factory.

 

yea i understand, anyway nissan cut the rotors in the back, and covered everything under warranty

 

yea man, the back was knocking so bad i was like what in the world is that, it sounded like someone was knocking hard on my back bumper , the sound could even be heard from across the street when i was driving , its kinda amazing that sound was coming just from the rotors being warped

 

I wonder do Infinity have this problem?

 

Knock on wood, my '09 brakes have so far been the smoothest I ever had on a car. I tend to baby them by never tightening the parking brake tighter than necessary to keep the car from rolling. I don't even use the parking brake in my garage or anywhere the ground is level (unless in an area where someone could hit the car), and never leave them very tight for extended periods. I also tighten the lug nuts to 81 ft pounds, although specs call for 85. When my car came from the factory, each lug varied in tightness, with the range being from around 85 foot pounds to 94 foot pounds.

I also do a lot of soft braking as soon as I get my new car, so that all braking surfaces can wear off spurious things, and bed down to a perfect fit.

But no matter these piddling things; rotors should not warp by 5500 miles unless the car sat for a very long time with the parking brake on excessively tight, or the lugs were not equally tightened, and at least one was excessively tight. Of course there could have been a defect in an original part. Not every part is perfect.

 

yea i agree, it could have possibly came defected from the factory

 

Add one: When you stop at the light from a long rolling brake, (like down a expressway ramp), don't let the pads squeeze the rotor in one area longer than a few seconds. Let the car roll a few inches frequently so the rotor does not superheat in one spot and possible add cause for warpage.

And it would have been nice had they replaced the rotor. Because "turning" the rotor if its warped still makes uneven thickness in the rotor so it can still warp. You'll notice it at 12,001 miles.

But you gotta love the '09!

 

100% Yes. I have always heard that, after any maneuver that would probably cause more than the usual brake heatup (Your examples were excellent), we should not hold the brakes while sitting in one spot; let the car ease forward gradually, if only inches at a time.

I also agree that turning rotors is something one normally does when they are more advanced in usage, and are showing the normal signs of slightly uneven braking (warp or whatever). This smooths out the stops during the last part of the rotors' life.

I would be a little uncomfortable with turning a rotor after only 5500 miles, especially not knowing what caused the rotor to warp. A rotor can normally only be turned a few times before it is too thin to be safely turned. This early turning could mean replacing this rotor at your own expense soon after your warranty is gone. I think the warranty period for wear items such as rotors is 12K miles? But then I guess that is where Dad came up with '12001 miles.'

 

I should research it but IIRC, rotors are considered a wear item like alignments and pads so probably get a 12/12 warranty.

I'll look it up when the wife bestows permission for me to get the owners manual and risk letting some of her precious "new car smell" out.

 

Speaking of your wife's 'new car smell', you might mention to her that the 'new car smell' is a aroma resulting from a cocktail of chemicals being emitted from materials used to build the car, and is considered by some folks in the medical profession to be unhealthy.

As an example, after the new car smell had faded away in my '09, I had to have a cracked windshield replaced. The installers used gobs of a urethane glue that had warnings on the container not to breathe the fumes. The installers emphasized those warnings.

After they finished, and the car has sat unmoved for the required three hours, my wife and I got in the car to move it inside the garage (the installing had been done under one of our large maple trees). We immediately noticed the 'new car smell' was back, and realized the urethane glue had been a big part of that new car smell. And we were not supposed to be breathing it. So we left the car windows open whenever the car was in the garage for almost two weeks, and the smell gradually faded.

 

Here's a list, in order, of things that'll "take her out" long before "new car smell" :

1. Stress from job.
2. Stress from not having a job.
3. Her singing along to XM while driving.
4. Her cell useage while driving.
5. Stress of parking her new car in our garage while stored farm implements swing around overhead.
6. Stress from my snoring.
7. Stress from overenjoyment of "New Car Smell".
8. The carcinogens from "New Car Smell".

Seriously, we shouldn't be breathing that stuff. Don't they make an activated charcoal filter for our in-cabin system?

 

Seems like I do recall something about a 'microfiber' something or other filter hidden behind the glove compartment. But a long lifetime of being bombarded by advertising and come-ons and gimmicks has sort of left me with a jaded view of things. I always have that nagging feeling things are created for the simple purpose of making money. So I naturally tend to suspect the cabin filter came into existance as a way to sell replacement filters. Maybe I have just lived too long.

 

Sorry to hear about your brake problem

A funny thing happened with my car, after the accident my front brakes would squeak like crazy as if they had been worn out but then after driving the car for about a month all of a sudden the noise went away and my car stops on a dime.

I guess sometimes some of us just in up with a car that has defects from time to time, just as others have ended up with stock Maximas that'll do 13's right out the box with no mods at all.

 

I can see that Nissan still has not improved the front brakes with the 7th Gen Maxiam. I happen to know a few people up here in Montreal that have warping after only 6 - 9 months of driving or about 9 - 16k Kms. I was so disgusted with the braking of my 6th Gen maxima that I went with aftermarket discs and pads. My discs are slighly oversized compared with the OEM...which translates to larger braking surface: They are also thicker and heavier than OEM...Vented, Cross-drilled and cadmium plated. I use Hawk HPS pads. A less expensive set-up would be to go with Solid Disks and High performance Ceramic pads or even ceramic disks and pads. I don't bother with x-drilled for the rear however I still use Hawk pads for the rear too. My car stops on a dime and is never noisy plus the set-up lasts much longer than OEM...typically 2 - 3 times as long!

 

I agree with you on the in cabin microfilter. It seems to be a solution without a problem.

As far as the rotor problems others are having I have been extremely lucky or extremely careful as I have never had a rotor warp on any vehicle I have had in the past 20+ years. I did have my front brake drums warp on an old Mustang I had but it was my fault. Heavy braking and then hitting deep water.

 

yep even on my 08 altima i haddd the same exact problem, im so afraid now to press the breaks hard because i dont wanna go threw this problem again. Thank god everything was covered under warranty

 

Well it's not a gimmick and Saab was the first to introduce the cabin ventilation air filter in 1978 which is highly acclaimed by hayfever sufferers and is still found in Saabs today, as well as the world’s first asbestos free brakes in 1981 and was the first to introduce CFC-free air-conditioning in 1991. But then I'm partial to SAAB (the pre-GM)...

 

Maybe your just really hard on your brakes?

 

Of course I know you are correct about the filter. My wife and I are 'filter fanatics', keep a clean 20"X25"X5" box filter in our HVAC system at home, and never stop worrying about dust. I replace my Maxima cabin filter exactly on schedule without hesitation. I also understand the cabin filter is not aimed at dust, but at pollen and other things to which folks can be allergic.

There are very few Saabs between the south side of Atlanta and the Florida line (that is hundreds of miles). I see tons of Volvos. My niece lives in Hartford CT, and there are lots of Saabs up there. I have always sort of liked Saab styling, although some would consider it as slightly quirky.

 

well im in nyc stop and go traffic everyday, but i dont find myself very hard on the breaks, just normal breaking.

 

Even though you are doing normal braking for NYC driving, the frequency of braking in such driving tends to keep the brake pads very hot. It may be that you can help things by, with each stop, avoiding sitting with the hot pads in contact with one spot on the rotors while you wait. This tends to overheat the rotors in the one spot the pads are touching.

I try to stop several feet short of anything in front of me, so as to have room to let the car continue to inch forward during the stop, which tends to spread the heat from the hot pad across the entire surfact of the rotor.

But even without such **** analysis and gerrymandering of stops, you are probably driving as 95% of drivers do, and should not have to face warped rotors as early as 5500 miles. It may be that Nissan needs to make the front brake rotors even larger than we currently have. Either that, or make the rotors from a less warp-prone material.

 

It must be working as when I replaced mine after 6 months it was Extremely dirty. I add my voice to Light's about changing this filter according to the schedule. It is a little tricky to get to, but worth it.

 

true......What puzzles me the most is that it wasnt even the front brakes, it was the back breaks that got warped.

 

BACK brakes warped first? Wow! That is unusual. The only time I have ever had trouble with back rotors is after leaving the parking brake on very tightly while the car just sat there for a period of several days. I now avoid putting the parking brakes on any tighter than necessary, and never put them on when the car is in the garage (which is most of the time, since I am retired).

Oh, wait; I did cause rear brake problems once when I forgot I had the parking brake on lightly, and drove around seven miles with those brakes on. Then I stopped at a light, smelled something awful, then saw smoke beside the rear of the car.

Have you double-checked the torque on each lug nut? The specs call for 85 ft lbs, but I have always gone with 81. My son uses 70 ft lbs on his TL Type 'S', and his wheels have never come loose. The important thing is that all lugs be torqued to the same tension.

One other possibility would be a stuck caliper. That would enable the pad to brush lightly against the rotor all the time. That sounds innocent enough, and would not be noticed while driving, but would definitely cause overheating and warping of the rotor.

The last thing I can think of is the possibility something is simply out of adjustment with the rear brakes, enabling the pads to continually brush lightly against the rotor. This would often not be noticable while driving, but would overheat and warp the rotor.

There could always be some obscure problem like a mechanical or software misbalance in the ABS (or VDC or TCS or other) system, which could be letting the rear brakes (or possibly even the brakes on just one rear wheel) do more than their share of the work in stopping the car. This would be bad, because the rear rotors are smaller than the front rotors, and the rear braking system is not designed to handle the load the front brakes are designed to handle.

In your case, it may be that the parking brakes are innocent. But any time I hear of rear brake problems in a fairly new vehicle, my first thought is the parking brakes.

 

Great, not the Nissan warped rotor problems again....I had my Titans front rotors replaced twice......

 

yea i never even used the parking break, the only other thing i could think of is from the factory my lug nuts may have not been torqued at the same tension