So I had an issue pop up this morning that I've noticed off and on for about a week now. When I'm braking, the car will RANDOMLY pull hard to the right. The faster I am slowing down from, the harder the car tends to pull. I had the car up on jackstands this morning and I don't see any signs of a caliper sticking, the tires all have the correct psi and are not worn unevenly and have decent tread left, nothing feels loose in the suspension (did the 12 and 6 o'clock shake and 9 and 3 o'clock shake on all 4 wheels with 0 play felt or noticed), all bushings look good, the tie rod ends feel tight, sway bar end links are not loose or broken, so I am kind of at a loss. I physically rolled all 4 wheels in the air to check for any kind of brake drag, and all wheels spin freely and easily. There is no sign on any of the rotors that a caliper is sticking, and if I was having a sticking caliper, I'd think I'd be getting a hard pull to one side while driving in addition to braking.

This does not happen every time I brake, and it does not happen on the same spot in the road if I drive a spot multiple times to test for tire tramling. What else should I be looking for? When this happens, the steering wheel does jerk hard to the right and I have to correct. I have an appointment next week to get my alignment checked, but the car tracks straight otherwise and was aligned about 3 months ago.

 

I had the same issue when I replaced my ceramic pads with stop tech sport pads, after a while when I applied the brake the car would steer to the left, and I knew it was not my alignment because I had it done a couple of weeks ago. I got my rotors resurface and placed my ceramic pads back on and the issue was fixed. If you are mechanically incline take out the pads, and grease the sides because it seems that the pads in getting stuck at some point, or it could also be in need of a brake fluid flush.

 

If its pulling to the right then calipers are not applying same load so one is bound up or other is overloading

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I did replace the pads about a year ago with OEM akebono ceramic pads (non-sport brakes), but I'll pull the wheels and calipers this weekend to investigate to see if anything is getting bound up. It's just really strange that it doesn't do this every time I brake. Usually in the past when I've had a caliper stick or start going out, it was consistent when I would brake. This happens maybe once out of every 20 or so stops, so it's a bit interesting. I'll post back what I find after I check over the brakes this weekend, as well as what the shop says when they check out my alignment on Monday.

 

It's probably a bound caliper rebuild kit is like 20 bucks for new seals and hardware

 

Got the car re-aligned, but it wasn't far off at all (.1 degree of negative camber on the left rear). I also pulled all 4 wheels, none of the calipers are sticking and the pads aren't getting bound up in the slides. I regreased all the slide pins and put some anti sieze on the pad edges, but it didn't change anything. I had my wife hit the brakes while I spun the rotors and made sure everything was releasing at all 4 corners. I'm wondering if maybe I have a bushing in a control arm getting worn or something. Time to investigate a bit more.

 

Have your abs system checked

 

Try bleeding the calipers on the opposite side of the pull. I have an old car with fixed calipers and lip seal pistons in the calipers - it is very sensitive to rotor runout and the slight in/out movement of the caliper pistons coupled with the lip seals introduces air into the system. Every few years I need to bleed my brakes when the car starts to pull.