Brake wear covered under warranty?

[jsmit86]

For people who have had success getting poor brake life covered under warranty, can you post some details about your approach?

Now for my details. I have a 4dr G35 sedan with about 8k miles. I brought the car in for the Oil change, and tire rotation. Normally I would not even be looking a brake life with this few miles, but based upon the amount of posts I have been seeing, and the amount of brake dust, I had them check brake wear. Fronts were at 40% remaining Rear at 50%. Basically this equates to a brake job at 13K.

My driving is about 60% Highway 40% City. My 2001 I30t was traded at 40,000 miles. The brakes were still good, probably another 6-10K. Previous cars, '99 300m 36k miles brakes still good. 96 Chrysler Concorde replaced brakes at 38,000. Still had a fair amount of pad life, but rotors were warped so I did the job a that time.

I understand the the G35 brake life should probably be a bit less due to performance or softer pads, but IMHO this type of life is not aceptable. I know that my driving habits are not the problem here because I have enough history to know what to expect for brake life.

I discussed this with my service manager yesterday when I picked up the car. He told me that he is getting a lot of complaints regarding brake life. He suggested that I call ICA, which I will do.

I know that this topic has been discussed to death on this forum, and I am not ranting, calling an attorney etc.. I just want to pursue this with Infiniti for 2 reasons. > Get a reasonable adjustment for the expense of brakes that are not lasting an acceptable amount of time. > Provide Infiniti with feedback and data that may help them "fix" this problem.

I suspect that this is not just an issue of "soft" pads. I am wondering if the brakes are actually dragging somewhat since I am getting a lot of dust. I also had a slight vibration in my steering wheel that turned out to be warped (very slightly) rotors. This was from day 1 on my car. The dealer diagnosed this a mis-balanced LF tire at my 3750 checkup. It did not get much better so they checked this again, and did the rotors yesterday. It drives fine now. I asked if they will still be able to resurface the rotors when I get my pads changed, and they indicated that the cut they took this time was so slight that there should be no problem.

If anyone who has had some success with this can provide some assistance i would appreciate it!

--------------------G35 Sedan Carribean Blue / Willow Prem Winter Wood Nav

[PalmerWMD]

Jsmit:

First of all welcome to our board!

I hope you enjoy your stay and I am looking forward to learning from you as you will learn from others here.:thumbup

As for your post ( I hope you are not too disapointed in my positon/explanation and pelase understand that this is no flame):

I personally dont know of any successful complaints on a G35.

In 90-91 customers complained about too much dusting and short brake pad life as well.At the time the early Q45 was one of the very best stopping vehicles out there and even out-braked some sports cars despite its much greater heft.

Even by todays standrads pretty good.

The factory figured performance oriented drivers wouldn't mind replaceing pads every 12-18 months (I sure dont) in exchange for class leading brakes.

But due to complaints about short life + dusting, the factory changed the pad formulation and made it harder resulting in a new pad and stated installing those as standard and as a result owners enjoyed longer life+less dusting.

The old softer, better braking, pads can still be had under the old 1989 part# at Infiniti dealerships and those are the ones I always insist on.

Fast forward to 2003, the G35 has brakes that outbreak nearly everytihng else on the road even the base brakes out perform nearly all otehr cars.

Outbrake all or nearly all competitors from Lexus, BMW, AMG even Porsche.

But they dust and wear just as much as those in an AMG C32 BMW M3 etc etc..

An alternative ,would be aftermarket pads which might give you a bit longer life, but would reduce your braking performance to that of a lesser vehicle (and may warp your rotors early, which BTW also wont be as long lasting, as those on less performance oriented cars).

Sorry, I dont have any better news, but I hope you can relate to my explanation.

Fred...

[PalmerWMD]

As for rotors that are warped out of the box, yes they owe you a deal on, replacement later on if they had to cut them early cuz of that.

Generally the dealers do a good job to not cut them a lot though.

In the future you can try Powerstop and/or Brembo rotors with MetalMatrix ( or simliar) pads (both available from Stillen).

Those <might> give longer life w/o losing performance, just about the only non OEM set-up I would be comfortable with

Fred...

[BillR]

Just put Hawk HPS pads on. No more dust. not sure about longer life though. I only replaed fronts, not sure if rears are available. But I hear Altima pads will fit!?!?

[PalmerWMD]

many aftermarket performance pads work better at hi temps but this is usually bought at the expense of cold (instantaneous) braking performance.

Fred..

[PalmerWMD]

Bill:How did the Hawk HPS work out for you?

Fred..

[jsmit86]

I am considering Hawk pads.Can anyone confirm the better pad life?If so by how much?

With my driving at about 22k per year, I prefer not to do 2 brake jobs per year!! :help

[Super Dave]

u know........if my rotors begin to prematurely warp I'll just use it as an excuse to get some cross drilled brembo's (which i think the 6M/T should come with). As fred said. You want performance? Then you have to pay the price.

[autotech43]

We have had several situations as you described, the rotors are also wearing in a concave pattern due to the soft material. Contacted tech support regarding several of the customers concerns on brake life and really haven't got a solution. As Palmer described, if you harden the pad and rotor to increase the life considerably, you will lose a great amount of stopping ability, not to mention the noise that comes with a very hard pad and rotor. If enough of the dealers/customers contact Infiniti, they may or may not come out with a different type brake pad and rotor. The years I have been with Infiniti/Nissan, if a customers concern get to a CERTAIN point, they have always came through for the customer. If something is brought up, tech bulletins etc. I will post the info.