How to Diagnose Warped Rotors on your Car

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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

Hi, guys. Tony here from 1A Auto.

In this video, we're going to be doing a little bit of a diagnostic. We're going to show you how to diagnose warped rotors in your vehicle so you can be more confident in repairing your brake system.

Some symptoms of warped rotors that you're going to see here today include the vehicle lurching back and forth, feeling a pulsation or a back and forth lurching movement in the seat of your pants, and a vibrating steering wheel. Another thing you may notice is an odd pulsation of your brake pedal, not quite like ABS where it's going to be a very consistent kind of pulse, but a more random pulsation or a heavier vibration than you might be experiencing with an ABS activation.

We're out in a 2005 Cadillac CTS today that has a good case of warped rotors. We're going to get some shots of what the symptoms look like so you can compare them to yours and make sure that you fix your car right. We're going to go ahead and get on the highway, get the vehicle up to cruising speed, and by the time we get down to the off ramp, we should be able to get on the brakes and give you guys a good example of these vibrations we're talking about.

The things you're going to be looking for are left and right vibration of the wheel, and you're probably going to see back and forth movement as the vehicle lurches from the rear rotors. We've got a good ride ahead of us before we get to our off ramp.

We're going to go ahead and get on the brakes a couple of times, if it's safe to do so, and see if we can't get the wheel to vibrate a little bit and maybe get the seat to come back and forth so you guy can get a good idea of what's going on.

There it is, that one shook the camera good. There it is. We're getting down to the off ramp now and there's that shaking wheel we were telling you about. It looks like our vehicles going to need a set of front pads and rotors to get this car stopping smoothly and safely again.

Thanks for tuning in. We hope this video helped you out. Next time you need parts for your car, please visit 1AAuto.com. Also check out our other helpful how-to and diagnosis videos.