russj

As promised I'm letting you know how the cars getting on. Well, several thousand miles later (both motorway and around town journeys) there is still no trace of brake judder. I'd be pretty confident in recommending an on-car disc skimming session if you're plagued by braking vibration. Hope this helps someone... Russ

Actually, I was wrong. The parts came from Brakeparts.co.uk, the other company was out of stock. The discs and calipers were "Budweg" and the pads Mintex. I've been messing around with cars for the last 40 years and this is only the second time I've come across this problem. I can only assume its because the discs are not bolted to the hub in any way. My Z3M Roadster had a similar problem which I resolved by having the discs skimmed but off the car. Both use vented discs so perhaps they are more prone to warping? The guy who did the work on my sons car said that he often did this work on Lexus 200, Rover 25 and a couple of other models which I forget. I guess people can read the thread and make their own mind up about what to do. As I said I'll let everyone know how long the fix lasts in due course.

Sorry its taken me so long to update this but my son has been living with the vibration and juddering and has only got the car sorted this morning. A place in Halifax skimmed the discs on the car for £40 per wheel and all is now OK. Whether this lasts, only time will tell... I'll let you all know in due course. Obviously everyone has their own views on the cause and cure for such issues and I certainly wouldn't hold myself up as an expert. We were told by the mechanic at Lexus in Norwich that failing to clean the mating surface was a frequent cause of juddering a few thousand miles after replacement. The disc running out of true develops hot spots which can cause it to buckle slightly, so causing the judder. A skim on the car compensates for any hub/disc mismatch and only takes off a very small amount of metal. In addition, Brake Parts UK who supplied the discs, calipers and pads, specifically exclude this problem from their warranty as its deemed to be operator error rather than manufacturing faults. If I was doing the job again I'd make damn sure that the hub was clean and flat - well worth spending a few minutes over in my opinion rather than extra expense and faff sorting things out later. Russ

We couldn't find anyone in Norwich who could do it on Saturday, so my son is going to find someone in Leeds to sort it this week.

We took the car to the local Lexus dealer and a tech took it out for a test drive. He diagnosed warped discs caused by me not cleaning the hub before installing the new disc. He said it was a common problem and they now clean down the hub with emery paper first to ensure no rust is present. What happens is that the disc doesn't run true and quickly develops hotspots as the brakes are used. This in turn causes the disc to warp after a few thousand miles. Rather then replace virtually new discs, we're going to get them skimmed in situ which ought to eliminate the warp. I'll let you know how we get on! Russ

Thanks for your reply. The calipers were brand new Budwegs, so I hope they haven't failed already! Tyres are new and balanced, with no vibration at speed so I think they're OK. I think I cleaned the hub surface but can't honestly remember. If this was the problem I'd have expected it to be obvious as soon as he started to drive the car, rather than surfacing some time later? Russ

My son recently bought a '99 IS200 Sport with about 100k on the clock. It had a fresh MOT but soon developed a vibration through the steering wheel on light braking. After a while he got fed up with it so I helped him replace the front calipers, discs and pads which seemed to cure the problem. Much celebration and back slapping all round! However, 3/4 thousand miles later, the vibration has reappeared He's bringing the car down this weekend for me to have another looksee. Apart from the obvious possibility that something's worked loose, has anyone got any idea of another source for the problem? Might be suspension related I suppose but can't understand why replacing the brakes fixed it temporarily... Any help would be much appreciated. Russ