99 Galant Front rotors warping

Try having a new set cryogenic treated. I paid $50 for the treatment of 4 rotors at

I had my '03 Durango rotors done as well as my '88 Starion and have not had any warpage problems since. BTW, I bought the cheapest rotors I could find for my test and couldn't be happier with the results. I've got over 10k miles on the Durango with these rotors and probably about 8K on the Starion. The Durango rotors were made in China and the Starion's were made in USA

Cryogenic treating relieves internal stresses in the material.

Rich

Thanks Rich. I'll take a look.

Number 1 cause for rotor warpage = improperly torqued lug nuts. If there is more than 10 pounds variance between nuts, or if nuts are tightened 10+ pounds over specs, you are inviting warpage to occur. Almost all tire & brake shops use air wrenches that are rarely calibrated to properly torque your lug buts. I would almost bet money that at least one or more of your lug nuts on the problem wheel is WAY too tight. Buy a torque wrench, and whenever you have tire or brake work done, jack the car up, loosen & re-torque each nut to the specs in your service manual (buy a Haynes manual if you don't already have one). You'll be surprised at how long those rotors will go.

Number 2 cause for rotor warpage = sitting on the brake pedal after long or hard stops. It is a good habit (but difficult to acquire) to let your car creep forward slowly after a brake-heating stop to keep the hot pads from concentrating heat on one area of the rotor.

Geary Mort> I seemed to have heard this is a typical problem with Galants. Is there a

To each his own.

I'm just stating what worked for me. Poor design or not, the Durango's are famous for warping rotors and this seemed to have solved that problem for me. I got this idea from a track guy on

BTW, I don't use a torque wrench on my wheels.

So if there's already apparent warpage, and if I re-torque the lugs now, will it make a difference? Or, is it too late? Or, will it prevent it from getting worse?

Cryo treating merely completes the coversion of the steel from pearlite to martensite. Typically, budget steel products that require hardness are a martensite (hard stuff) with a mix of leftover pearlite. Dumping heat into this mixture can result in warpage sooner than an all-martensite steel.

- Cryo treating will help if the steel is supposed to be all martensite and still contains some pearlite (cheap brake rotors often see great benefits). The 100% martensite is more dimensionally stable (read: less warpage)

- Cyro treating will not help if the product wasn't designed to be all martensite, or the manufacturer did a good job making the martensitic steel in the first place. Cryo treatment companies know that the typical consume won't understand what cryo treatment does, and will cryo treat your car keys if they can sell it to you.

Uneven clamping pressure, meh, I don't buy it. Since there is no such thing as a disc brake with pads covering all the way round the disc, I'm gonna say all calipers apply uneven pressure no matter what. What matters is how well the rotor distributes the heat.

Dave