Tip to eliminate brake judder
 

I have never had brake judder on my G, but my toyota sienna work van had it fairly bad. So i tried an experiment. I went through the process of bedding the brake pads, even though they were not new. Find a lonely stretch of highway, and slightly apply brake pressure while traveling 55-60 mph to heat up the rotors as not to shock them, then perform 6 to 7 cycles of applying the brakes full pressure at 60 mph all the way down to 5 to 10 mph then accelerating back up to 60 mph and repeat 6 to 7 times. Do not come to a full stop, after finishing the last cycle drive around without using the brakes if possible to allow them to cool for about 10 minutes. If you have to come to a complete stop during the cool down process, put the car in neutral so pad material will not get deposited on the hot rotors. Brake judder gone, hope this works for you guys.

This works if the judder is caused by pad deposits on the rotor. If the issue is due to runout caused by rust between the hub and rotor or improper lugnut torque, it won't really help

Nice tip. I never fully bedded my brakes, I did a few runs but didn't have enough time to do the whole thing. I might do this if I get judder in the future.

I used to do this once or twice a year with my old '03 Maxima, and it worked perfectly well for a while... hence the rinse/repeat pattern. The technique I used was exactly what the OP described. I would find a lonely stretch of highway in the dead of night, then continue on the highway back home with the brakes untouched so they could cool.

With the G, far I'm on 37K miles with the original Sport Brakes, un-serviced too, where a number of mechanics have said they're fine. They seem to stop well enough, without any judder or fade. The only thing I ever did was swap the brake fluid a couple years ago.

The plan is for 2019, where I upgrade brakes regardless of the condition. Figure 50K miles give or take.

Can you elaborate on the rust/hub issue? I am intrigued as I never would have thought about that

When you put the rotor on it sits against the hub. When doing a proper brake job, you are supposed to clean all the rust off this area around the studs as small tolerance issues at the hub translate to larger issues at the outer diameter of the rotor.

This is why I don't lets shops do my brakes. Some tech trying to maximize his book hours isn't going to take time to scour the hubs and will probably put your wheels back on with an impact wrench to boot. Few thousand miles later and your brakes are juddering again.

when i do my brakes, i scour the hubs with a power drill attachment and apply a thin coating of copper anti-sieze where the hub mates against the rotor (don't get any on the studs) to prevent future corrosion. This also helps me not need to take old rotors off with a hammer when its time.

^Right here.

I swapped mine when I first got the car because the judder/shaking was horrendous. When I popped the rotor off, there was a layer of rust so bad it looked like a textured ceiling.

Indeed, and the rust doesn't care that it's sandwiched in there, it will spread and change cause excessive run-out, so even your good brake job will go bad over time unless you take steps to prevent rust. I just use the same copper anti-seize I put on the brake shims and hardware and spread it thin with my finger anywhere the hub makes contact with the rotor. This is a major issue in states that use road salt. I've had to use a 10lb mini-sledge to take off rotors before, which, of course, always runs the risk of screwing up your wheel bearings. Proper corrosion control also prevents this.

Took the same precautions. I have one more rotation before winter hits so I'm curious to see how well it holds up to MD salt after one winter. Just did my sway bar and my exhaust looked pretty rough.

I had rust VERY bad on mine when I swapped to sport brakes. The car was from New Jersey but I'm here in south so I wont have to worry about those conditions too much. Needless to say, I had a bit of a rough time getting the rotors off, unit I saw this Youtube.....



Don't ever hammer your rotors off again. This method is so much safer.

Sorry posted in wrong section :/

through either luck or care, i've never had an issue using a hammer, but this method is clearly superior. It's almost time for me to do front brakes on this car for the first time. I've had the pads off to lubricate them, but for all i know, the rotors are original with 4 years of PA road salt in them.

yeah i killed my front left wheel bearing when i had to bust off my old rotors with my framing hammer :banghead:

Wow, that sounds awful. When I took off my caliper to replace some wheel studs my rotor just fell off on its own.

make sure the hub is clean of rust and debris when you take the wheel off along with backside of wheel