For the last week or so I've been having intermittent vibrations while driving, which is proving difficult to troubleshoot. Generally it only occurs under braking, but once it was present while coasting on a smooth road. When braking, especially hard, the car vibrates through what seems to be the brakes. The steering wheel doesn't shake at all. Sometimes the rear left brakes are much hotter than the other three wheels and smells of burnt/rubber or plastic. The rotors and pads are only a year old, so I hope there isn't deposits on the rotors. Because the rear left smells sometimes, I'm leaning towards a issue with the parking brake. This issue occurs on and off, and letting the car sit seems to temporary fix it most of the time. I recently noticed that when I pull on the parking brake there is no clicking. It locks the wheels in place fine, and comes up on the dash board as it should. Any ideas?

 

It sounds like the left rear caliper is starting to bind up. Unfortunately when that happens, it typically means a new (or remanufactured) caliper as well as new disc and pads.

 

Dang, I was hoping to avoid the caliper issue. Even though my pads/rotors are relatively new, would I still need to replace all of them?

 

I know the feeling. Sounds like you were spared from having smoke emit from the wheels while driving on the interstate. My LR caliper was sticking so I ended up buying a re-manufactured one.
If you go that route. I highly recommend painting it with some sort of rust proof spray.

Swapping out the caliper is a lot easier than it sounds.

run your finger nail up and down on the rotor and test for smoothness. thats how I check,

 

So after some investigation it looks like the pads were off by about 2mm. Seems odd how they could have shifted, oh well. Currently I don't have a garage/lift so I took it to my local shop and they want $215 for rear pads, cleaning the brakes as they have some rust, and resurfacing the two rear rotors. They also said the right sway bar link is broken and offered to repair it for $240. Any comments on this price? The brake portion seems high, but not too crazy, but the fixing the sway bar seems much more expensive if it's an easy fix I can do in the parking lot.

 

The rear brakes are so easy to do. Couple of bolts and a screw. $50 labor. For $165 i would like to know if they are OEM or something? What do you mean by off 2mm?

 

I don't think the $215 is a bad price. However, I do agree with others, it sounds like it may be an issue with the caliper sticking. If you get new pads and the rotors resurface and the caliper is indeed sticking, you've wasted your money.

I haven't looked into replacing the rear end link, but the OEM end link is $15: https://www.oemacuraparts.com/auto-p...lower-arm-scat

Parts #'s 6 and 7, depending on the side of the car.

Unless there is some process I am not aware of, replacing the end links should be a super quick job. I don't know if that one is worth paying $240 for, unless the $240 is for end link AND brakes, which is still a reasonable price, in my opinion.

 

+473 on caliper sticking and parking brake not adjusted properly.

 

I decided to go ahead with the new rear pads and rotors and the braking issue seems to be fixed. It is a lot smoother, and I haven't had any vibrations so far (20 miles of driving or so). I didn't do the stabilizer link repair as, like you said, the part is $15, and from what I've seen in the service manual it is a simple repair as long as the rust isn't too bad.

Regarding the parking brake, is it suppose to click? I couldn't find an answer online, but mine doesn't click at all but seems to function normally.

 

Glad your brakes seem better. They are one of the most important parts of the car.

For the parking brake, look into doing the major parking brake adjustment. Mine was basically useless. I could rip that bitch all the way up and it wouldn't do anything.

Basically, the parking brake should start engaging after only a few clicks. After the Adjustment, mine won't max out anymore, it will go about half the distance it used to for full engagement.

I did a major and minor adjustment.
Not sure why yours is not making any sounds though. That doesn't seem right, unless something is broken. I dunno, man. If you think it works, then I would just leave it be.