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Jaguar XF - Shuddering steering wheel when braking - Immortal

Hi I'm completely new to this sort of forum so after some advice/opinions.

My steering wheel was shaking when braking in December. I use a guy who has set up a mobile garage, he used to be a mechanic at a premium brand dealership for many years. I took the car for a drive with him to see and he said I needed new front pads and discs changed. He fitted Pagid pads and discs on both front wheels.

The shaking stopped for a while but now has started up again. I asked my mechanic again and now he says so long as it is through the steering wheel ansd not the brake pedal or through my seat, the only possible reason could be is binding brake callipers which are over heating causing the discs to warp- so now I need new callipers AND new set of discs and pads!!!

I asked him why the callipers weren't checked in the first place or even changed to avoid needing a new set of pads and discs. His answer was that you only change callipers if there is a known problem, you don’t usually replace them when you replace pads and discs. He also said "in his experience in the past he's cleaned callipers up but within-a few week they seized again. There is a piston inside the calliper that needs to be very clean and corrosion free. You can't really clean it unless you take it apart and that takes ages, cheaper to buy new ones than paying labour to take them apart and clean them. Plus you'd also need a calliper restoration kit".

He doesn't strike me as a dishonest person or trying to rip me off and he has very reasonable labour rates but I am struggling with the fact I have to now replace the pads and discs again and pay about £500 on top of what I already paid.

Is his diagnoses correct or am I being naive and should I be getting a second opinion? I phoned Jaguar up but they wouldnt really say much because they preferred I took it in for a diagnostic at £90.

Many thanks for any advice or opinions as I am not a technical person.

Jaguar XF - Shuddering steering wheel when braking - Brit_in_Germany

It may not be the callipers but the result of leaving your foot on the brakes when the discs are hot from heavy braking. This can leave a deposit of the brake pad on the disc which then results in uneven braking, i.e. vibration.

Have a read of this article (Myth 1):

www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white...s

Jaguar XF - Shuddering steering wheel when braking - hardway

Your guy sounds straight up and honest.

You just don't renew callipers when disk/pads are done.

And I agree overhauling the old ones isn't they way to go,

Even though the tech would actually make more money doing that,

But as he stated you could be back next week/month very angry!!

If I'm correct then the calliper are Alloy,

great for light weight but only the body is alloy,

the actual piston are high grade steel,

Which bring up all kinds of problems with dissimilar metal corrosion.

The brakes on my bike are the same and at this time of year I carry a big lump hammer for side of the road "Adjustment".

I'll strip and clean the brutes in better wether.

They don't actually stick on but the squeek is bugging.

Safe but annoying.

So back to point one your guy is being honest..

Jaguar XF - Shuddering steering wheel when braking - gordonbennet

Calipers are either free moving or they arn't, your calipers might come round with correct lubing of the piston and working the piston in and out a few times, that would be my first action including checking the sliders are free if they are of a slide design, but i would have done this at the time the pads/discs were changed, and your mechanic may well have done so too and his suggestion the calipers are past it is probably correct, and Hardway is quite right about alloy calipers, they almost never last like cast steel.

The poster above is quite right about too in tryng your best not to leave the brakes applied following a very hard stop, material does transfer and the pads holding tight don't help the disc cool evenly.

There is another possibility too, are the rear brakes effective enough, it wouldn't be the first time that front brakes were doing more than their fair share, being overworked and overheated leading to warping, it was possible to judge things like this before the days of ABS, because you might have front brakes prone to locking too easily, with ABS doing it's thing it's not so easy to tell.

These brake problems are all exacerbated due to brakes not being serviced correctly, almost no mass produce maker has proper brake servicing in its service itinery, Toyota used to, every major service (so every other year or roughly 20k miles) the brakes were strip clean and lube (and yes they did it too), i don't know if this is still the case, i've done this for years too and if you keep them clean and lubed the hardware last forever...for too many garages a brake service comprises peering at the things and squirting brake cleaner about, no wonder they seize.

May is suggest if you do need new friction materials again to go for Brembo, i've been very impressed since changing to these, last time i looked ECP/carparts4less offered Brembo at decent prices.

edit, it might be worth checking the Jag forums to see if the XF has a habit or warping/eating discs, long time ago but i bought an ex police driving school Rover 800, that thing got through many sets of discs and pads in the hands of the old bill and it continued in my ownership, they simply weren't up to the considerable performance of the car...i suspect the equivalent Honda Legend didn't have this issue.

Edited by gordonbennet on 13/02/2018 at 18:34