My shimmy thread

Should be a warranty issue, take it to the dealer and stand firm. Ford boasted about these new 12 inch brakes so they should back them up if they are warping.

i believe the brakes have a 12mo/12k warranty.

Yup, sounds like a warped rotor for sure. It only takes one panic stop to put a rotor out of tolerance... Since your car is so new, I'd march back to the dealer and ask that the rotors get turned under warranty.

srothfuss said:

Yup, sounds like a warped rotor for sure. It only takes one panic stop to put a rotor out of tolerance... Since your car is so new, I'd march back to the dealer and ask that the rotors get turned under warranty.

Click to expand...

If I needed new rotors I think I'd ask for exactly that, a new set of rotors, instead of having the dealer resurface the existing rotors by grinding some of the life off them.

Did your panic stop require you to lock up the brakes enough to leave rubber on the road? If so, you may have tires that are out of round as well.

Flat spotted tires - the tire is no longer 100% circular due to an elongated skid resulting from too much brake pressure application

After you drive the car away (hopefully) from an extended skid like that, it can feel as if the tires are "lumpy." Been there - done that.... To make your tires round again, nice smokey burn outs help (just have to rotate all of the tires to hit all 4 with a burn out)

I suspect the rotor because you notice your "shimmy" while you apply the brake

srothfuss said:

Flat spotted tires - the tire is no longer 100% circular due to an elongated skid resulting from too much brake pressure application

After you drive the car away (hopefully) from an extended skid like that, it can feel as if the tires are "lumpy." Been there - done that.... To make your tires round again, nice smokey burn outs help (just have to rotate all of the tires to hit all 4 with a burn out)

I suspect the rotor because you notice your "shimmy" while you apply the brake

Click to expand...

+1


My wife had to lock up the brakes on the Cobra one day to keep from broadsiding some idiot who ran a stop light. I could tell immediately because of the bumpy ride. After a few hundred miles the problem was still there so I took the car to my tire guy and he load force balanced the tires. The flat spots on both of the front tires were bad enough that he had to rotate the tire on the rim to get rid of it .

This is, I beleive, exactly what happened to me. I don't recall a specific incident that instigated the issue, but I did notice a shimmy that got progressively worse when braking and sometimes driving.

I have another post on the subject, but long story short: I went to the dealer and they ground my front rotors and rebalanced my wheels.

I don't, however, think they did a 'force balance' (as I think it's been referred to earlier in this thread), so a wheel must have remained slightly off-balance, resulting in a small shimmy while driving. [This has since been rectified by winter shoes and a proper balance.]

My problem with the rotor mill solution is that I don't think it was the fair solution for me. At 10000 miles this should not be a problem - and the rotors and pads should have been replaced. But now I have much less life on my rotors and my pads because of the need to re-seat them into the newly ground rotors.

Yes, I do wish I could upgrade the brakes and rotors, but at this time I am unable to afford it. So, does anyone have an idea as to how I could get new rotors (and maybe pads) out of the dealer? I tried explaining it once to them and got nothing.