Brakes Making Vibrations and Weird Noises

[jritt@essex]

I wanted to check back in on this issue and respond to a couple recent posts that have added some data to the mix. To those who took their car to the track on the OEM pads and subsequently had a vibration, judder, etc...that's no surprise at all. I've honestly never seen someone go out on the track in a 3500 lb., 500hp car on stock brakes and not get judder or vibration afterwards. OEM pads are NOT designed to operate at track temps. I don't care if the dealer or sales person told you that. They're not, period. If you want to take your car on the track, at minimum you need a good set of race pads. Without them you are risking uneven pad deposits, judder, and vibration.

I can understand why some of you guys are frustrated with BMW, but you need to educate yourselves about what's going on with your brakes to help manage the situation. Hopefully we can help assist with that. What's most unfortunate is that the guys working at the dealership don't understand how brakes work well enough to make proper recommendations.

Below is an excerpt from a paper I wrote seven years ago titled, "How to Choose the best street and race brake pads."

I’m going to share a little secret with you: As delivered from the factory, the brakes on your car are not capable of handling repeated lapping on a racetrack. They’re also probably not very good for Autocross, drifting, or rally racing. I don’t care if your calipers are painted red or gold, if you have gigantic carbon ceramic rotors, or if your car is advertised as being optimized on the Nordschleife. Do you know why your brakes are not up to the task of a serious thrashing as delivered? It’s the lowest common denominator rule.
In the US in particular, manufacturers try to make every car as accessible to as many people as possible. That includes the guy who probably has no business being behind the wheel. Despite the hardcore enthusiast’s wishes, that’s why you don’t see fixed-back race buckets in a stock Corvette, and why stiff, manually adjustable coilovers aren’t standard issue on a 911. It’s much easier to push a button in the cockpit. The same is true of your car’s brake system. If a manufacturer delivered a ‘track-day special’ with an extremely noisy brake pad, there would be countless complaints and warranty-related service calls. The Nissan GT-R is a perfect example. The owner’s manual clearly states that the car has high-performance brakes, and that they could make some noise. I was browsing one of the GT-R forums the other day, and of course there were a number people complaining about brake noise. Go figure.

So, how do manufacturers address this problem? They compromise, sometimes heavily. The fundamental dilemma of taking a street car on a racetrack is that it was designed to do so many other things besides going as fast as possible. A purpose-built racecar has no such identity crisis. The brakes fitted to your car as standard are one of the most glaring examples of this dilemma, and they’re often the first vehicle system to wilt when leaned upon under heavy use.

What we want and need from a street pad is completely different from what we expect out of a race pad. For day-to-day street driving, we’d all love to see our pads have the following attributes:
• Never make any noise
• No dust on our fancy wheels
• Good cold bite on the way to work
• Effective in the rain and snow
• Last 100,000+ miles
• Never wear out rotors

When the weekend rolls around however, our priorities shift. We want our pads to have the following traits:
• Enough heat capacity to never fade after repeated lapping on a racetrack
• Predictable torque response for precise brake pedal feel and modulation
• No required bed-in or preparation
• Low compressibility for a rock-hard brake pedal
• Immediate release from the discs when we let off of the brakes
• No uneven pad deposits or scoring of the rotors
• Little to no wear as heat increases

See any differences between those two lists?

Unfortunately, most manufacturers err on the side of caution, and prefer to make the stock brake pads as docile as possible for the street. They know that one day your girlfriend or wife will take your Evo to the store, and she’ll tell you that there’s something wrong with your “screechy brakes.” For the hardcore enthusiast however, the inherent performance compromises in OE brake pads are difficult to accept.

Therefore, our currently available options are as follows:
1. Accept the sub-par performance of the factory pads during aggressive driving, and enjoy their docile manners around town
2. Try to find a ‘happy medium’ pad that contains some attributes of both street and race pads
3. Install a harsh race pad that performs well in motorsports but has no ‘street-friendliness’

So, we have some choices to make. We must define the most important pad characteristics for the type of driving we’ll be doing, and choose a pad strategy with acceptable compromises. We try to get as close to our happy medium as possible, based on how we use our car. Every situation is different.

Pad and Disc Management

Managing your pads and discs properly goes hand-in-hand with choosing the proper pads. Once you have the proper tools, you need to know what to do with them. Hopefully our videos below make sense and give you some better insight into how you need to be managing your pads and discs. Check out our Youtube channel for more educational brake videos.

Pad Options for the F80/F82

We have some great Ferodo pad options for both the street and track that you can see in this thread. One of the great things about swapping between the Ferodo DS2500 and the Ferodo race pads (DS1.11 and DSUNO) is that you don't have to re-bed every time you swap pads. You can lay down one material over the other without worrying about scraping your discs clean, re-bedding, etc. I'd say at this point about 80% of our Essex/AP Racing Big Brake Kit customers are running the combo of DS2500 and either DS1.11 or DSUNO. We almost never hear complaints about vibration or judder!

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by jritt@essex

I wanted to check back in on this issue and respond to a couple recent posts that have added some data to the mix. To those who took their car to the track on the OEM pads and subsequently had a vibration, judder, etc...that's no surprise at all. I've honestly never seen someone go out on the track in a 3500 lb., 500hp car on stock brakes and not get judder or vibration afterwards. OEM pads are NOT designed to operate at track temps. I don't care if the dealer or sales person told you that. They're not, period. If you want to take your car on the track, at minimum you need a good set of race pads. Without them you are risking uneven pad deposits, judder, and vibration.

I can understand why some of you guys are frustrated with BMW, but you need to educate yourselves about what's going on with your brakes to help manage the situation. Hopefully we can help assist with that. What's most unfortunate is that the guys working at the dealership don't understand how brakes work well enough to make proper recommendations.

Below is an excerpt from a paper I wrote seven years ago titled, "How to Choose the best street and race brake pads."

I’m going to share a little secret with you: As delivered from the factory, the brakes on your car are not capable of handling repeated lapping on a racetrack. They’re also probably not very good for Autocross, drifting, or rally racing. I don’t care if your calipers are painted red or gold, if you have gigantic carbon ceramic rotors, or if your car is advertised as being optimized on the Nordschleife. Do you know why your brakes are not up to the task of a serious thrashing as delivered? It’s the lowest common denominator rule.
In the US in particular, manufacturers try to make every car as accessible to as many people as possible. That includes the guy who probably has no business being behind the wheel. Despite the hardcore enthusiast’s wishes, that’s why you don’t see fixed-back race buckets in a stock Corvette, and why stiff, manually adjustable coilovers aren’t standard issue on a 911. It’s much easier to push a button in the cockpit. The same is true of your car’s brake system. If a manufacturer delivered a ‘track-day special’ with an extremely noisy brake pad, there would be countless complaints and warranty-related service calls. The Nissan GT-R is a perfect example. The owner’s manual clearly states that the car has high-performance brakes, and that they could make some noise. I was browsing one of the GT-R forums the other day, and of course there were a number people complaining about brake noise. Go figure.

So, how do manufacturers address this problem? They compromise, sometimes heavily. The fundamental dilemma of taking a street car on a racetrack is that it was designed to do so many other things besides going as fast as possible. A purpose-built racecar has no such identity crisis. The brakes fitted to your car as standard are one of the most glaring examples of this dilemma, and they’re often the first vehicle system to wilt when leaned upon under heavy use.

What we want and need from a street pad is completely different from what we expect out of a race pad. For day-to-day street driving, we’d all love to see our pads have the following attributes:
• Never make any noise
• No dust on our fancy wheels
• Good cold bite on the way to work
• Effective in the rain and snow
• Last 100,000+ miles
• Never wear out rotors

When the weekend rolls around however, our priorities shift. We want our pads to have the following traits:
• Enough heat capacity to never fade after repeated lapping on a racetrack
• Predictable torque response for precise brake pedal feel and modulation
• No required bed-in or preparation
• Low compressibility for a rock-hard brake pedal
• Immediate release from the discs when we let off of the brakes
• No uneven pad deposits or scoring of the rotors
• Little to no wear as heat increases

See any differences between those two lists?

Unfortunately, most manufacturers err on the side of caution, and prefer to make the stock brake pads as docile as possible for the street. They know that one day your girlfriend or wife will take your Evo to the store, and she’ll tell you that there’s something wrong with your “screechy brakes.” For the hardcore enthusiast however, the inherent performance compromises in OE brake pads are difficult to accept.

Therefore, our currently available options are as follows:
1. Accept the sub-par performance of the factory pads during aggressive driving, and enjoy their docile manners around town
2. Try to find a ‘happy medium’ pad that contains some attributes of both street and race pads
3. Install a harsh race pad that performs well in motorsports but has no ‘street-friendliness’

So, we have some choices to make. We must define the most important pad characteristics for the type of driving we’ll be doing, and choose a pad strategy with acceptable compromises. We try to get as close to our happy medium as possible, based on how we use our car. Every situation is different.

Pad and Disc Management

Managing your pads and discs properly goes hand-in-hand with choosing the proper pads. Once you have the proper tools, you need to know what to do with them. Hopefully our videos below make sense and give you some better insight into how you need to be managing your pads and discs. Check out our Youtube channel for more educational brake videos.

Pad Options for the F80/F82

We have some great Ferodo pad options for both the street and track that you can see in this thread. One of the great things about swapping between the Ferodo DS2500 and the Ferodo race pads (DS1.11 and DSUNO) is that you don't have to re-bed every time you swap pads. You can lay down one material over the other without worrying about scraping your discs clean, re-bedding, etc. I'd say at this point about 80% of our Essex/AP Racing Big Brake Kit customers are running the combo of DS2500 and either DS1.11 or DSUNO. We almost never hear complaints about vibration or judder!

This is happening on mine with strictly street driving.

My car has never seen the track.

[JcLusso]

I hope your efforts work out because I'd love to get this solved on my car.

[hdubf80]

Originally Posted by JcLusso

I hope your efforts work out because I'd love to get this solved on my car.

Me too. Its the only thing that bothers me about this car.

[ssabripo]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

This is happening on mine with strictly street driving.

My car has never seen the track.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

This issue is happening and has been happening BEFORE OR WITHOUT any track time. This is strictly an issue of the pad material or a design flaw, PERIOD. Else it would not be happening to multiple people that have never tracked the car...

[jeremicium]

Your info is great regardless of whether or not you are just on here trying to push a product...but i gotta ask, is that your primary interest on here? Looking at your history of posts it seems that you are a vendor. Again, that doesn't mean that what you are saying isn't accurate, but it does make me think that, while your info seems legit, maybe it's also possible that BMW did a poor job of engineering the rotors and/or the pad compound used.

Maybe switching to a different pad is the solution, or maybe we need to keep pushing BMW for a fix.

Originally Posted by jritt@essex

I wanted to check back in on this issue and respond to a couple recent posts that have added some data to the mix. To those who took their car to the track on the OEM pads and subsequently had a vibration, judder, etc...that's no surprise at all. I've honestly never seen someone go out on the track in a 3500 lb., 500hp car on stock brakes and not get judder or vibration afterwards. OEM pads are NOT designed to operate at track temps. I don't care if the dealer or sales person told you that. They're not, period. If you want to take your car on the track, at minimum you need a good set of race pads. Without them you are risking uneven pad deposits, judder, and vibration.

I can understand why some of you guys are frustrated with BMW, but you need to educate yourselves about what's going on with your brakes to help manage the situation. Hopefully we can help assist with that. What's most unfortunate is that the guys working at the dealership don't understand how brakes work well enough to make proper recommendations.

Below is an excerpt from a paper I wrote seven years ago titled, "How to Choose the best street and race brake pads."

I’m going to share a little secret with you: As delivered from the factory, the brakes on your car are not capable of handling repeated lapping on a racetrack. They’re also probably not very good for Autocross, drifting, or rally racing. I don’t care if your calipers are painted red or gold, if you have gigantic carbon ceramic rotors, or if your car is advertised as being optimized on the Nordschleife. Do you know why your brakes are not up to the task of a serious thrashing as delivered? It’s the lowest common denominator rule.
In the US in particular, manufacturers try to make every car as accessible to as many people as possible. That includes the guy who probably has no business being behind the wheel. Despite the hardcore enthusiast’s wishes, that’s why you don’t see fixed-back race buckets in a stock Corvette, and why stiff, manually adjustable coilovers aren’t standard issue on a 911. It’s much easier to push a button in the cockpit. The same is true of your car’s brake system. If a manufacturer delivered a ‘track-day special’ with an extremely noisy brake pad, there would be countless complaints and warranty-related service calls. The Nissan GT-R is a perfect example. The owner’s manual clearly states that the car has high-performance brakes, and that they could make some noise. I was browsing one of the GT-R forums the other day, and of course there were a number people complaining about brake noise. Go figure.

So, how do manufacturers address this problem? They compromise, sometimes heavily. The fundamental dilemma of taking a street car on a racetrack is that it was designed to do so many other things besides going as fast as possible. A purpose-built racecar has no such identity crisis. The brakes fitted to your car as standard are one of the most glaring examples of this dilemma, and they’re often the first vehicle system to wilt when leaned upon under heavy use.

What we want and need from a street pad is completely different from what we expect out of a race pad. For day-to-day street driving, we’d all love to see our pads have the following attributes:
• Never make any noise
• No dust on our fancy wheels
• Good cold bite on the way to work
• Effective in the rain and snow
• Last 100,000+ miles
• Never wear out rotors

When the weekend rolls around however, our priorities shift. We want our pads to have the following traits:
• Enough heat capacity to never fade after repeated lapping on a racetrack
• Predictable torque response for precise brake pedal feel and modulation
• No required bed-in or preparation
• Low compressibility for a rock-hard brake pedal
• Immediate release from the discs when we let off of the brakes
• No uneven pad deposits or scoring of the rotors
• Little to no wear as heat increases

See any differences between those two lists?

Unfortunately, most manufacturers err on the side of caution, and prefer to make the stock brake pads as docile as possible for the street. They know that one day your girlfriend or wife will take your Evo to the store, and she’ll tell you that there’s something wrong with your “screechy brakes.” For the hardcore enthusiast however, the inherent performance compromises in OE brake pads are difficult to accept.

Therefore, our currently available options are as follows:
1. Accept the sub-par performance of the factory pads during aggressive driving, and enjoy their docile manners around town
2. Try to find a ‘happy medium’ pad that contains some attributes of both street and race pads
3. Install a harsh race pad that performs well in motorsports but has no ‘street-friendliness’

So, we have some choices to make. We must define the most important pad characteristics for the type of driving we’ll be doing, and choose a pad strategy with acceptable compromises. We try to get as close to our happy medium as possible, based on how we use our car. Every situation is different.

Pad and Disc Management

Managing your pads and discs properly goes hand-in-hand with choosing the proper pads. Once you have the proper tools, you need to know what to do with them. Hopefully our videos below make sense and give you some better insight into how you need to be managing your pads and discs. Check out our Youtube channel for more educational brake videos.

Pad Options for the F80/F82

We have some great Ferodo pad options for both the street and track that you can see in this thread. One of the great things about swapping between the Ferodo DS2500 and the Ferodo race pads (DS1.11 and DSUNO) is that you don't have to re-bed every time you swap pads. You can lay down one material over the other without worrying about scraping your discs clean, re-bedding, etc. I'd say at this point about 80% of our Essex/AP Racing Big Brake Kit customers are running the combo of DS2500 and either DS1.11 or DSUNO. We almost never hear complaints about vibration or judder!

[jeremicium]

Update on my situation:

Brought the M4 back to the dealer specifically to address the groaning noise. Swapped out all four wheels and confirmed noise was still there. Went on test drive of two other M4s, one with 300 miles, one with 1200 miles. Neither had seen track time, both had a groaning noise. The one with 1200 miles was nearly as bad as mine.

Dealership service manager confirmed that regional service dude said the noise was common to this vehicle. Both the service manager and tech also agreed that the noise isn't something you should expect from a car like this. They did mention that drilled rotors can be noisier than non-drilled, but as other members have said, this issue is certainly not common to all drilled rotors.

Very interested to hear how ssabripo's meeting goes on the 7th.

For now it seems there is not much the dealership can do other than advocate for the customer and hope that the problem is highlighted enough to cause BMW to work on a fix. I'll be contacting BMW NA to add my name to the list of people complaining.

[shaftwhy]

I think there are two possible related issues here:

1. Take to race track, you will have uneven pad deposit thus vibration and groaning. Mine did, I complained to my dealer and they said well you went to track and that's not covered. But because I have been owning 3 BMWs so they decided to give me one time good will replacement for all four rotors and pads. After replacement, went to track again, the same issue happened again. So I think jritt@essex's suggestion is spot on for this. Getting a racing pad seems the right solution.

1. Without going to racetrack you can still have the groaning issue. When I complained to dealer, they had me ride with a shop foreman in an new M4 in the lot, which had less than 100 miles. It had similar but less obvious groaning issue, no vibration. I think this is just how the brakes/pads were designed. BMW designed the brake system to be a performance brake which performs better than regular 3 series, and made compromise on the noise. Sadly it's not exactly race track ready so either way(street or track) we are not happy.

For OP, I think you should insist BMW to replace all rotors and pads for you. At least to see if that changes the severity of the groaning.

Originally Posted by jeremicium

Your info is great regardless of whether or not you are just on here trying to push a product...but i gotta ask, is that your primary interest on here? Looking at your history of posts it seems that you are a vendor. Again, that doesn't mean that what you are saying isn't accurate, but it does make me think that, while your info seems legit, maybe it's also possible that BMW did a poor job of engineering the rotors and/or the pad compound used.

Maybe switching to a different pad is the solution, or maybe we need to keep pushing BMW for a fix.

[shaftwhy]

Also for those who didn't go to track and still have this issue, mind share some photo of your rotors when they are well luminated? I have been bothered by groaning/vibration issues from pad deposits for so long and went through a lot of stuffs as well. I can almost tell from looking at the rotor (if the photo quality is high) if there is pad deposit which can cause vibration and groaning. Maybe I can hep a little bit here.

Originally Posted by shaftwhy

I think there are two possible related issues here:

1. Take to race track, you will have uneven pad deposit thus vibration and groaning. Mine did, I complained to my dealer and they said well you went to track and that's not covered. But because I have been owning 3 BMWs so they decided to give me one time good will replacement for all four rotors and pads. After replacement, went to track again, the same issue happened again. So I think jritt@essex's suggestion is spot on for this. Getting a racing pad seems the right solution.

1. Without going to racetrack you can still have the groaning issue. When I complained to dealer, they had me ride with a shop foreman in an new M4 in the lot, which had less than 100 miles. It had similar but less obvious groaning issue, no vibration. I think this is just how the brakes/pads were designed. BMW designed the brake system to be a performance brake which performs better than regular 3 series, and made compromise on the noise. Sadly it's not exactly race track ready so either way(street or track) we are not happy.

For OP, I think you should insist BMW to replace all rotors and pads for you. At least to see if that changes the severity of the groaning.

[hdubf80]

Why cant BMW just make replacement pads with all their R&D im sure they have the capability to do that and it wouldn't hurt their piggy bank.

[infamousdiz]

Put me on the list with vibration And noise under hard braking.... Though I changed the front pads and actually can't remember if they still do it..... I brake hard all I ask is that they bite and work well when I call upon them.

I also know how to bed in brakes, they still did it

[hdubf80]

Originally Posted by infamousdiz

Put me on the list with vibration And noise under hard braking.... Though I changed the front pads and actually can't remember if they still do it..... I brake hard all I ask is that they bite and work well when I call upon them.

I also know how to bed in brakes, they still did it

The brakes still work the same its just that for a 80k car you want them to be refined without that noise. Ive never heard something like this on any other car. Its a shame BMW had to go the cheap route.

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by hdubf80

The brakes still work the same its just that for a 80k car you want them to be refined without that noise. Ive never heard something like this on any other car. Its a shame BMW had to go the cheap route.

To make it worse, it's a recent issue. I had an E90 M3 and it didn't do that at all. Infact the iron brakes on that car was more robust in every way compared to the F80. In feel, performance, and longevity.

I wonder if they cheaped out because they made the carbon ceramics an 8k option.

[hdubf80]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

To make it worse, it's a recent issue. I had an E90 M3 and it didn't do that at all. Infact the iron brakes on that car was more robust in every way compared to the F80. In feel, performance, and longevity.

I wonder if they cheaped out because they made the carbon ceramics an 8k option.

I second that. My e60 M5 never had this issue and i tracked that car too.

[infamousdiz]

Originally Posted by hdubf80

The brakes still work the same its just that for a 80k car you want them to be refined without that noise. Ive never heard something like this on any other car. Its a shame BMW had to go the cheap route.

on a happy note the new pads i put in no longer vibrate, for 40 dollars and 30 mins of your time your brake concerns are over. a lot less brake dust too, a little less bite but not that noticeable.

[infamousdiz]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

To make it worse, it's a recent issue. I had an E90 M3 and it didn't do that at all. Infact the iron brakes on that car was more robust in every way compared to the F80. In feel, performance, and longevity.

I wonder if they cheaped out because they made the carbon ceramics an 8k option.

Problem solved, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

should we have to do this, absolutely not but it did fix the problem people describe

[hdubf80]

Originally Posted by infamousdiz

Problem solved, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

should we have to do this, absolutely not but it did fix the problem people describe

Thank You. Are these front only or the whole set?

[infamousdiz]

Originally Posted by hdubf80

Thank You. Are these front only or the whole set?

its just the fronts, they make rears too now but i just have the fronts, the brake dust was too much from the oems.

Easiest brake job i have ever done, they slide in like cartridges. takes more time for the wheel to come off,

buy this too
https://www.amazon.com/Tool-connecti...rake+pin+punch

or something like it

[ssabripo]

**Update**

Just got back from the dealer after a drive with the regional tech support engineering manager. They took the car for a spin and saw the issue. They will analyze and get back to me with a possible "solution".

stay tuned...

[hdubf80]

Originally Posted by infamousdiz

on a happy note the new pads i put in no longer vibrate, for 40 dollars and 30 mins of your time your brake concerns are over. a lot less brake dust too, a little less bite but not that noticeable.

Im a lil concerned about the reduced break bite. I like the responsiveness of the oem brakes

[ssabripo]

**** FINAL UPDATE ***


Welp, here is the "official" and final reply from BMW

xxxxxxx@bmwna.com
6:24 PM (15 hours ago)

Hello gentlemen,
this is considered normal characteristic for the performance brake system on this model vehicles, BMW will not condone the use of any aftermarket parts or suggest of any other brake pads to be used on this vehicles since it will change the performance of the braking system as designed.
Thanks.

my reply:

So this is BMW's final answer for a $80k car?! That this is "normal"?

and the eloquent, well thought out, pragmatic reply:

Yes.

so after all the hoopla, all the "let me work my channels, but don't worry, we'll figure out a solution, blah blah blah blah", this is the grand finale reply?


I'm done with BMW.

[Xtabi]

Originally Posted by ssabripo

**** FINAL UPDATE ***


Welp, here is the "official" and final reply from BMW

my reply:

and the eloquent, well thought out, pragmatic reply:

so after all the hoopla, all the "let me work my channels, but don't worry, we'll figure out a solution, blah blah blah blah", this is the grand finale reply?


I'm done with BMW.

Looks like a CYA responce to me. I got a very similar one from Nissan North America many years ago for an issue with a 350z.

It was at that point I pursued legal recourse. They ended up buying back my car plus paying over $6k in lawyer fees.