akhbhaat

My brother purchased a 2003 CL 3.2 base model about a month ago, but this is the first opportunity I've had to drive it. Drove it extensively, for a little over an hour around town last night (a distance of around 50-60 miles).

One thing I immediately noticed was a bizarre shaking/shimmy that you could easily feel through the steering wheel while braking, and the harder you pressed, the more noticible the shimmy. Interestingly enough, I've never driven a car with warped rotors before, so I didn't know what to expect (BMW's stock OEM brakes are actually very, very good...but I pay for it with 5 inches of brake dust 3 days after washing the car ), but I immediately figured the problem was related to the brakes just based on the nature of it.

Came here and did a search, and all signs point to rotors.

However, the one thing my search didn't tell me was this: most of the cars that seemed to have the problem had at least several thousand miles on them, many had several more. My brother's has just 447 miles on it! I'm absolutely positive that he didn't abuse the brakes when he first got the car. He and I are polar opposites in that regard...I'm the autocross/track fiend who once got pulled over for "street racing and doing 75 in a 45" ("against" a fugging TAURUS who was following me...no, truth is I was just late and in a tremendous hurry...cop did eventually let me off) while he drives, for all intents and purposes, like an old woman... . Thus, the brakes should've been bedded fairly well.

Warped rotors with less than 500 miles? That raises eyebrows.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

You never know.. it could happen. There have been a few cases where the warped rotors appeared very early, so it could definitely be that.....

akhbhaat

Thanks for the response. I suppose we'll have to take it in to find out for sure.

tdtsai

Don't just let the dealer resurface the rotors. Tell them you want new ones. Otherwise, you will end up going back to the dealer for the same shit, which has been the main problem with CL, in a short time. Believe me, I am speaking from experience

tuleman

I would be willing to bet someone test drove the car at the dealership prior to your brother buying it. If they are like me they do a "break test" from freeway speeds on this test drive. When I have taken test drives I hit the brakes as hard as I can. This could have easily warped the rotors. Kinda sad.

Just a thought

Rock2534

I have had this happen, had to have my rotors resurfaced 3 times in the three years i have had it. Guess the heavy weight of the car takes its toll or something. The dealer never gives a problem about it though.

akhbhaat

Well, the car was shipped over from Miami (the dealership we bought from didn't have the right color combination in stock), so we have no real way of knowing where the car was or what it was doing before he bought it. I thought of this too, and asked, but according to my brother it had 6 miles on it when he picked it up. If this is correct, it's still possible it was test driven, but for a very short period of time if at all.

Saturday might be a good day to have it fixed, he's getting his windows tinted that same day.

sonor kid

It doesn't matter really as the brakes will cause you trouble now and down the road, no matter what Acura does.
I sometimes think it's the pulsation in the ABS system that screws up the rotors but since I bought new cross drilled aftermarket blanks and new ceramic pads my brakes feel perfect, not a single shake or vibration.
Total cost was $203.00, a small price to pay for peace of mind.
I lost patience trying to have these fixed by the dealer on three seperate occasions.

Sly Raskal

iTrader: (1)

when i got my car, after about 15K miles i started noticing unusual shaking when braking, i took it to the dealer and they told me that their is an issue with some CL's and the rotor's not being made or done correctly, they warrantied the service and it was fine after that. but they said it was a known issue.

fast_daddy_car

I agree to try and get new rotors. At about 15k I had PAA resurface my rotors under warrenty. I went in about a month ago for the 30k service and mentioned that the shaking is back (if you let go of the steering wheel you can see it alternate about an inch in each direction as you brake. PAA said everything was fine and nothing wrong with it.