FlzRider

I bought a completely stock '02 S2000 back in August with approximately 46k miles and have been trying to diagnose a pulsing brake feel. You can feel it mostly at low-mid brake force. The car is a 1-owner car and I have checked all the provided service paper work and have looked at the pads/rotors themselves and have confirmed everything is OEM and original.

So far, I have done the following to try and remedy the issue:

-Take all 4 wheels off and torque properly
-Ensure front brake calipers are not seized and are sliding on their pins properly
-Took a look at and measured front pads and rotors and both look good and have plenty of life left
-I tried getting a dial indicator on the front rotors to measure runout but I couldn't get a consistent/reliable setup to feel confident in what I was measuring. However, as I spun the front rotors by hand, I could feel some slight drag at a spot on the rotation
-I have NOT removed the rotors from the hub to check for rust or foreign material on the hub mating surface due to the fact that everything points to them being the original rotors that it left the factory with

Everything I have read online says that rotors almost never actually warp and that it is usually just uneven pad deposition, so I figured my 5 months of street driving would clear them off (I'll be honest and admit i'm not that hard on my brakes) but that has not happened.

I prefer to actually diagnose the issue before I start throwing money at it, but I am considering simply buying some AutoZone Duralast front blank rotors and seeing what happens. If I did, would it be okay to continue using my OEM AP1 pads? The other option I see is buying some slightly more aggresive track pads to clear off my OEM front rotors. Any recommendations on which pad would accomplish that?

Adrenalize

I personally think you could go with new rotors at that mileage. You should get new pads when you change your rotors. Or just take the rotors to a shop and have them machined if they still have life. That would be cheaper.

What about brake fluid? Has that ever been done?

Chuck S

In my other cars pulsing has been warped or worn out rotors. These can often be turned down.

Not experienced this in my '06 S2000 but the front rotors and pads were replaced with new OEM parts by the selling dealer last June at 38K miles just before I bought the car on 3 July 14.

-- Chuck

FlzRider

Brake fluid has not been done yet. It is on my list of to-do's but I don't think it'll have much effect on a pulsing feel.

I haven't given much thought to resurfacing the rotors, probably because replacement rotors can be had so cheap (Autozone) that I wonder if it will be worth it. Do you have any experience turning rotors? The rotors do have plenty of thickness on them.


Do you have any experience turning down rotors?

fernando.

Your front rotors are warped, I have to deal with customer complaints of this on the daily.

Have them machined, any dealership or machine shop can do this for you. You can machine a set of front Honda rotors up to 2 times before replacing them. Standard is 25mm, minimum thickness is 23mm and you normally don't take more than 0.08" off each side when they're machined, so at 46k you're fine to have them machined.

LeMoose

Sounds like how my own brakes felt after a track day last summer.

If you look at the inside of the disk surface, you can actually see there's a uneven, wave-like wear pattern which I assumed was the disk warping.
I too plan on getting them machined down, as the 'ol heavy-braking trick didn't do any good.

Sylvan

I took one of my pairs of front rotors to a shop to have them turned. They were slightly pulsing but after the resurfacing I installed a new pair of pads as well. Nice and smooth now. The shop charged me $15 for the turning.

freetors

It could be your particular pad compound. My car has 77k miles on original rotors. A PO had some different pads on it that left little deposits on the rotors, especially the rear when the parking brake was applied. This caused the slight pulsing that many might say is a warped rotor. I put on a new set of OEM pads recently and this completely went away after the first drive. No more pulsing, no more deposits. It's not always the rotors fault. I would even venture to say that most of the time it's not the rotor's fault.

fernando.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong to say it's not the rotor's fault most of the time.

I fix these issues for a living, trust me when I say it's the rotor 99% of the time.