ajg617

Sorry to keep harping on this, but has anyone on this forum had a brake rotor separate into two pieces (while driving) with the braking surface separating from the hub on their passenger vehicle? I'm getting to feel this is a pretty uncommon occurrance for a street vehicle.

Thanks,
AJG617

vzdude

Very common in the "salty " areas. I imagine NH uses a lot of salt in the winter, as does Indiana here. I've seen it on numerous vehicles unfortunately. The only recall I'm aware of for the problem is on Jeep ZJ's.

johnh

i had it happen to me on a 76 dodge wagon... kind of scary

Erik

Happened on my 1996 Ford Van..

ajg617

Did it feel like you lost all brakes when it happened? Did you have ABS on the 1996 (I'd guess the 76 was pre ABS)?

Erik

No it was not running when it fell apart.
I was getting the tires rotated and the tire was off when I saw the crack, reached over and touched it and it broke. I had felt a "pulse" before when I would put on the brakes. I had just bought the van and it had about 30,000 miles on it.

XLR8R

This is a well-known problem with the 2nd gen Ram (at least to us! )

The '98 has always had quite the appetite for front brakes - remember the TSB for the height-sensing rear brake proportioning valve? Since we operate the service trucks at (or above ) GVWR, the front pads get replaced a couple of times annually - that's also how we became proficient at turning down the rotors while still mounted to the truck!

Anyway, once on a long trip the front rotor was machined in two by the hard "lifetime warranty" pads , and I drove it for another week 'til I had a chance to repair/replace back at the shop. The timing of the other separation wasn't quite so unfortuitous...

We have two custom 2-peice rotors at the shop now.

... and the '98 is still going strong on the original rear brake shoes at over 250K miles!

Rare1

Hard lifetime warranty pads are warranted to destroy your rotors before the pads wear out, but since the pads are not worn down you are stuck with the cost of both rotors and new pads. If you buy soft lifetime warranty pads they wear out, don't hurt the rotors, and you get free pads over and over.

XLR8R

The '98 has lifetime warranty rotors too, but after replacing the first set we started buying the limited warranty pads - cheaper, but still free since they never make it more than a year!

Why_Try

Had the RR come apart at 70k. Not a big deal aside from when it tried sucking th piston out of the caliper and i lost the seal. 7500lbs with no brakes. Makes the exhaust brake investment seem worth it.

fbx22

its not common for them to break in 2 but my father who has run his owns shop for 20 years gets sees about half a dozen a year in PA