warped disk?

My 2004 (45,000 miles) is ready for its second brake job. The disks on these things are crap. I'm going to replace mine with aftermarket. Any suggestions on brands. Im up in Vancouver, Canada. Also going to do the job myself it looks fairly straight forward. Crappy Tire has Monroe pads on sell now. They also had disks a couple of weeks ago but i missed it.

When braking now - horrible pulsating, vibration - at slow speed you can feel the drag on half the disc only. I dont even drive hard, just cheap product.

Any info greatly appreciated - thx.

Yeah twice in 45K miles is a bit much. :shakehead But we had good luck on our original GM pads and rotors on a 2002 Alero GL2. Just replaced with Performance Friction Carbon Metallic pads and simply turned down the GM rotors to 25mm thickness. Mileage was 47K miles. Works like a champ with no vibrations or pulsing. If we were going to replace the rotors it would be with Raybestos Professional Grade (PG). Stay away from the cheapy white box made in China stuff and some of the dubious stuff on EBay.

Also, rotor warp or excessive lateral runout can be caused by improper torque on the wheel nuts, not using a star pattern and torqueing to 100 ft-lbs with a torque wrench. Plus the caliper pins must be lubed and insure the rubber dust/water boot is good. The caliper pin bolts and caliper bracket bolts should also be properly torqued. Make sure the caliper piston protective boot is good with no cracks or damage.

OK, brake job completed. New Disks $150. pads $50. Everything went in beautifully.
$200. for a complete new brake job I can live with. Lets see how long everything lasts. Its all from Canadian Tire - lol. Pulsating completely gone.
But anybody know if the discs should be really hot after use and I dont mean hard use, I just mean driving around use. Spit sizzles off them when touched.

Yes, your discs will be very hot (enough to sizzle spit and then some) after normal driving, even if it's only a mile or two and even without hard braking. There's a lot of friction there while driving, even if you're not using the brakes at all.

I'm happy to say that my brake job after 2500 miles is still good. No pulsation, no squeaking and excellent stopping power. And it gets better as the Performance Frictions pads wear in with mileage. Although I normally replace the rotors, I took the cheap way out and had the OEM rotors turned down. Just anecdotal info for anyone interested. :wink:

The brakes on this body are notoriously small for the car. There is a tut floating around which has part numbers etc., to get larger discs/pads installed. It's a little more than your standard brakejob, but you'll be much more pleased with the lifespan you'll get outta your brakes. I did it on my 2002 and haven't regretted it since. If ya can't find it via searches, lemme know and I'll see if I can dig it up.

Course it's all based on how much ya drive the car - Ours is the daily driver, and before the swap we were swapping discs/pads just about yearly. Since the swap, I've changed pads once, probably due for them again soon. But no warbling, no pulsating, discs are holding up great. Been about 3 years since.