PCA Forums

Evil, I'm going back to the dealer on Friday, just wanted your opinion.

2007 Camry XLE, 56,000 miles.
Last week the dealer replaced the right front axle (they noticed it was leaking a few month ago during previous oil & lube) put new tires on the car, did a power steering fluid flush and oil & lube.

Since then, the brakes have been pulsing. I know it's not a warped rotor because I had no pulsing at all prior to this, and the dealer did a front & rear brake job (including resurfacing rotors) April last year.

I'm thinking it's ABS or something mechanical when they installed the axle. My gut feeling is it FEELS like the kind of ABS pulsing you get during extreme braking (there's an electronic feeling to it). However I get it all the time (although it is much more pronounced when braking hard at higher speeds).

This may just be a wives tale, but I was once told that if you over torque the wheels when you put them back on you can warp the rotor.. May not be the case, but possible?

It's possible that they damaged the ABS wheel speed sensor or there's a problem with the ABS sensor ring on the new axle.
I assume you're taking it back?

Yeah. Planning on taking it back Friday morning. Thanks.

Hmm. They found no fault with the ABS, and the mechanic felt is was the front rotors and/or uneven pads. So they resurfaced them and sanded the pads the pulsing has gone away.

Just puzzles me how there could be zero pulsing before the new axle was installed, and immediately after there is. When I mentioned that, the service adviser says there shouldn't be any correlation, and it must have been a coincidence.

I dunno. It just bothers me that everything was fine before the axle was installed.

I'm also slightly miffed that my extended warranty didn't cover the axle replacement. Seems like a front axle shouldn't be failing at 56K. What the hell good is an extended warranty if it's not going to cover something like that? The explanation I got from the adviser was that it wasn't covered because the axle was leaking.

Some extended warranties are better than others. Many don't cover things due to little details like that. Oh, they'll cover it if it snaps in half but otherwise no.

Strange coincidence about your brakes. It's possible that they discovered their mistake, fixed that yet blamed your rotors but there's no way to prove that now.

Yeah, seems a bit fishy to me too. Rotors don't just suddenly pulse. It's a slow build-up.

If there was rust under the rotor (between rotor and hub) and the rotor was moved to a different location (index) after being removed (which it was), then that could be the cause. But, Florida cars and especially an '07 shouldn't have that problem.
We see ALOT of rust here on older cars (lots of salt and moisture here in winter) and removing it is a normal part of doing a good brake job.

When we get a southern car to work on here, we're always happy to see it being rust free.