Warped Discs - A warranty fix?

[ukvoyager.info]

I hammer the brakes, driven many track days and done 32 laps around the nurburgring. Not once have I had warped disks. I did 40,000 miles on original and 20,000 on APs with no problems what so ever.

If you ask me warping disks is usually down to one of the following:

- Overheating them
- Holding your foot on the brake pedal at lights/roundabout when red hot
- Nuts not done up to a unified torque value
- Not using it and disks rusting up
- Washing it and disks rusting up

It isnt a vauxhall issue, other than they should have put better brakes on them in the first place, but that’s another story .

[MikeGF]

Trying to get hold of the dealership to see if I can supply the discs myself, and if so, crisisjez, you will have a sale!

Cheers
MikeGF

[ringram]

Swapping disks yourself isnt a major issue either, I did mine in an hour or so.
Just take wheel off, unbolt caliper, remove disk (sometimes needs some persuasion) and replace.
You can push the calipers back in and swap out pads at the same time. No need to bleed them unless you want to.
Save some more bucks there.

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When swapping discs over be carfeul as it's wasy to damage the pistons in the calipers when pushing them back. you can get a special tool for this job that makes it verys easy.

Also be very careful and check the brake fluid. If the fluid has been topped up/changed during the life of the discs then pushing the pistons back can cause an overflow of brake fluid which is nasty to just about everything (paint/metal/rubber/people)

The other cause that was identified to me was acutally be too easy on the brakes. Light braking can mean that high spots on the disc touch the pads and not the low spots (we can be talking microns here). The effect is that the high spots heat up and get material transfer from the pads but the low spots dont making high spots even higher...

[anonymous-user]

ringram said:

Id say the GTO ones were the same as the CV8 for sure.
You can get exact dimension from dba.com.au they have all the disk dimensions in their catalog.
Nice bedtime reading Sadly last night I also read though Diamonds forged piston catalog..

Cheers Richard. Other chaps, the point I was trying to make, incase you missed it, is you can get replacements from America for
$269.99, that's about £135. If you are totally mechanically incompetent, pay your local garage to fit them, but there is no excuse for paying £2k.

http://rpmspeed.com/product_info.php?

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 6th March 19:43

[ksithumper]

£2k for discs is obscene given that complete sets of front discs and calipers are available in Aus for A$1500.

[Groutie]

Interesting thread. I only do about 8k/year mainly London streets, VXR 5.7 on 54 plate. Phoenix Wimbledon changed my front discs out last year under warranty as they checked them and informed me that they were in fact warped (just before 3 years old). Motor had approx 21k on the clock. Rather annoyingly, they've gone again, now 24k on clock. I'm not too heavy on the loud pedal so braking is never too furious. I doubt if they'll change them again, as the motor's out of warranty period but I'm reluctant to pay for standard replacements in case they go again in short order. I think I'd rather drive to Monkfish and pay for the dogs danglies upgrade (unless there's a specialist any closer to home). It does rather annoy me that on a motor like this, where stopping is of premium value, the brakes are iffy.

[crisisjez]

Groutie said:

Interesting thread. I only do about 8k/year mainly London streets, VXR 5.7 on 54 plate. Phoenix Wimbledon changed my front discs out last year under warranty as they checked them and informed me that they were in fact warped (just before 3 years old). Motor had approx 21k on the clock. Rather annoyingly, they've gone again, now 24k on clock. I'm not too heavy on the loud pedal so braking is never too furious. I doubt if they'll change them again, as the motor's out of warranty period but I'm reluctant to pay for standard replacements in case they go again in short order. I think I'd rather drive to Monkfish and pay for the dogs danglies upgrade (unless there's a specialist any closer to home). It does rather annoy me that on a motor like this, where stopping is of premium value, the brakes are iffy.

If you do, watch the AP`s round town.
Was getting caliper stick driving slowly and braking gently, they don`t like it.
Now brake much more aggresively and that seems to do the trick.
Do you keep your foot on the brake at stop`s?, if so you`ll kill them doing that too.

Oh and welcome to the forum. (good choice of car)

Edited by crisisjez on Saturday 8th March 08:54

[Yorkkie]

I think Crisisjez has the nail on the head. Had mine to Monkfish yesterday for a service etc and MOT. The car has been garaged over winter and rarely driven in the wet. I was feeling a little bounce on the brake pedal and thinking warped disks (VXR brakes on a CV8). On inspection it is due to rust build up on the inside of the disks. Bearing in mind this brake system has only done 9k miles or so it seems rather odd. We decided I dont brake hard enough to clean them up.......... note to self must drive harder.

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I think that was possibly the issue with my car too - for new discs to suffer from this in 2.5k miles is pretty extreme. Assuming that the discs were not from a bad batch or fitted wrongly then the only other thing I can think of is that they hate light brake application. With the new discs I've been much harder and make a conscious effort that if I have had to use light braking (coming down multi storey circular ramps is the main culprit) then I make sure I perform a reasonably hard slow down as soon as. This seems to be working -the brakes feel just as good as when they were swapped over and I've covered 2k miles since.

[Groutie]

Thanx for the welcome and thanx for the tips. Yes I do footbrake at lights etc. I'll try to be more handbrake. I'll also try out some hardish braking soon as to see if I can blow the cobwebs out.
Yeah I'm happy with my choice of motor, actually had to look hard for 04 model as I need the bigger boot space. Very poor choice to put the squirt tank in the boot, doh, GT = big bonnet, big boot. Anyhoo, I digress.....