I did my brakes about 5000 miles ago. New Axxis Ultimate pads all around and milled the OEM rotors. Stock brake system on an 02 wrx wagon. They work great and there is no directional pull under hard braking. However, my front driver side rotor is already developing noticeable grooves that I can feel by dragging my finger across the rotor. The other three corners have a small amount of grooving but almost none compared to this one. So what could be causing this? Did I mess something up when I did the brakes? Was the rotor milled unevenly? Can I fix this without replacing any parts? Or should I not bother with it at all and just keep riding on it until it's in bad shape?

I have been hearing a constant kind of grinding noise at lower speeds that gets drowned out by freeway noise but I am sure it is directly connected with the rotation of the wheels or something else that would change with vehicle speed only and not transmission or engine speed. No one else can hear this grinding sound but I'm sure it's there.

So, any advice on what I should do?

 

question: How hard or aggressive braking have you done in those 5000 miles?

Also, did you bed the brakes in and have the rotors resurfaced after installing the new brake pads?

 

Mostly regular city/highway driving with a dozen or so hours of slightly more aggressive braking in mountain driving.

Yes, I did bed the brakes in as suggested by the manufacturer, and the rotors were turned/resurfaced at the same time.

Keep in mind that only one rotor seems to be wearing more than the others.

 

hmm, was hoping for more folks to chime in.

from what i know (admittedly i'm not a mechanic, but was around repair shop/hi-po shop industry before, fixed my own car for maintenance and performance parts), i think it could be one of these:

• you said you have an 02. I would guess you have close to or over 100K miles. Possibly you have a brake caliper, as it wears down, that is getting "sticky" and not fully releasing when you let up.
  
  last time you flushed your brake system? but if it's a sticky caliper, you may need to replace it. simplest solution if indeed the problem
• I have Carbotech brake pads. i noticed that when i do a lot of city driving and haven't really jammed on my brakes in a week or two, i tend to get groovage in my rotors. However, next time i do a mountain run and get on the brake pedal fairly good, the grooves even out fairly well on my rotors.
  
  but this doesn't really explain why one rotor would be noticeably different from the rest (except for above point)

hope this gives you some ideas to look for...

 

Hm, well the car has 70k miles on it, 7000 of those in the last 4 months. How do I check for a sticky caliper? I thought nothing pushes the caliper off from the break rotor when you let go, it just stops applying pressure to it.

Anyways, bump for more advice?

 

bump for help

 

this link here reminds me of what i noticed on my car when I had the sticky caliper...
http://www.ehow.com/how_5068269_calipers-sticking.html

what was happening was that my car would always drift to the right. Even after I got my alignment, it drifted to the right. When I would brake, it would generally tug to the right also.

The psgr front caliper ended up being the sticky one, and after replacing it, the car no longer drifted or tugged to the right while braking.

hope someone else chimes in too...