Quote:
Originally Posted by dschultz
Help!
My front brakes seemed to be chattering a bit so before I take them to Laguna Seca this weekend I decided to have my mechanic check them. They said they had been badly overheated and that the calipers needed to be rebuilt. I trust these guys and no reason not to believe them. I have all of 4 track days in this car. My last track event was at Thunderhill in November. I never felt any brake fade, I don't think I was particularly hard on the brakes, I am certainly not the fastest or more aggressive driver out there. I am very careful on the cooldown lap and do a couple of laps around the paddock after every session before parking. So... what gives? Is it my driving style? Braking style? Z4MC, ATE Blue brake fluid, fresh before the last event. ... the only mods are a cup holder and stubby antenna!
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Lots of folks here with lots of track days, not many with cooked brakes. So,
.
The most common cause of chatter, vibration, or "warped rotor" feel is uneven pad deposits. Floating rotors don't warp (very hard to do). Uneven pad deposits, however, are easy to acquire. There are numerous causes. The most common would be using the wrong pad for the application (e.g. stock pads or low MOT pads, etc.).
Not that I'm saying your mechanics are wrong, but the last person I know with a Z4M who "cooked" their brakes and had to rebuild really cooked them--as in they were smoking and pretty much on fire. And a rebuild in that case was really replacing the seals, not new pistons. While it's possible a caliper rebuild is needed, it doesn't sound like you've gotten the brakes hot enough to do that. Perhaps the prior owner did?
Even if you need a rebuild, that may be an independent issue from the chatter, which I'd again attribute more to deposits. Deposit issues are easily fixed with a re-bedding of pads in most cases, or, swapping out for an aggressive "cleaner" pads like
hawk blues for a short period. Rebuild is more about safety IMO, and, that's if really needed.
If you're using stock pads, you might want to move up to a higher MOT pad, re-bed, or scrub the rotors as noted in the link, or some combo. No one right answer here, it depends on the cause.