Brake problems... or not?

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Hello,

I have a 1995 Altima-- 110,000 kms. It used to ride, handle, and brake beautifully. However, over the last 50K or so it has rapidly deteriorated. I think that ther may be some problem with the front suspension, but I am not sure. Here are the symptoms:

1. When comming to a stop (low speed, low brake pressure) there is a vibration from the brakes (a rumble, similar I guess to ABS but I don't have ABS ;-) ) The only way I can describe it is that it feels like the calipers are "jittering" as they try to grab the rotors, just for a few feet of stopping. I have had them checked many times (plus all regular service) and Nissan says they are fine. I believe them, but I think there is a bigger problem they are not seeing.

2. My rear drums (GXE) were very worn at about 70,000-- needed a lot of work, and dealer said it looked like very hard braking had occurred. Not likely, although perhaps the hand brake was left on once. Anyway, my feeling is that the front brakes are not working right, and the weak rear drums are taking additional strain.

3. The steering wheel has quite a bit of vibration-- old tires and new tires, which were balanced twice. Enough to make me uncomfortable at highway speeds, where it used to feel so smooth.

4. The cornering, particularly left turns feels funny; not solid anymore. I know that is not clear, but it just feels off.

Anyway, I thought I might have been crazy, but I drove my friends 96SE, and guess what? Same braking noise, same wheel vibration! The steering on the 96 feels okay, but so did mine at that point (85,000km).

My only ideas are: bad wheel bearings; misaligned brakes; bad CV joints; or some other suspension thing. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Eric

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Your first problem could be excess brake dust getting stuck between the brake pads and the rotor. As far as going to Nissan to get service are you going for OEM replacement parts or the value priced parts. They try to sell you both and I think the value priced parts are very poor quality.

#2 Maybe they weren't adjusted correctly, maybe the parking brake was initiated, etc. I don't know what to tell you here. Replace the brake shoes.

#3GXE would mean you have steel wheels. Have you ever hit a curb or run over any large debris. You might have a bent wheel. Try rotating the front wheels to the rear and see if there is any difference in vibration. When was the last time you had an alignment?

#4 Might be a strut going bad. I replaced my rotors on my Maxima this last weekend (50,000 miles) and noticed that my drivers side front strut had some dirty oily material built up around it and i've been noticing a funny noise from that area of the car. I think it might be a bad strut.

I'm not being too much help here unfortunately. Maybe try going to a different dealer if that's possible, because it sounds like the one that you go to can't find any problems when it sounds like there are definite problems.

Beholder

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Thanks for the quick reply! This is a huge help. I already replaced the shoes in the back, and they had do do some work to repair the drums. As for the other items, I'll check those out soon.

It's funny, I always assumed that they only had OEM parts at the dealership. (doh!) Now that I think about it, though, after the pads were changed they squeak quite a bit, and I was given the excuse of the pads being more metallic than the originals...

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial[/img]quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by etursman:

It's funny, I always assumed that they only had OEM parts at the dealership. (doh!) Now that I think about it, though, after the pads were changed they squeak quite a bit, and I was given the excuse of the pads being more metallic than the originals...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nissan has two lines of replacement parts. One is the straight factory part ($$) and the other is the "Key Value" ($) line which is considerably cheaper...how do I put it? You usually get what you pay for?