BRAKES!!

[Magnet 2112]

I bought my 2006 G35 with 11,000 miles on it. It needed brakes so the dealership replaced the pads and turned the rotors. 12,000 miles later, I have the same pulse as it did when it was fixed. I know the brakes on G's are a sore subject but 12,000 miles?! At this point I guess I would try to get Brembo's because $800.00 every 12,000 miles I would pay for them soon. Is this just a bad brake job or is this the way it is

[C-Kwik]

Pulsing can occur from holding the brake down when the rotor is too hot. This transfers more brake pad material onto the rotor which creates a slightly higher amount of friction. This can be felt as a pulsing or brake judder.

In bad cases, the imbedded pad material can be converted to cementite if the rotors see high temperatures often. Cementite is a very hard material and causes uneven wear of the rotor, which causes judder as well. Turning the rotors in this case becomes a temporary solution as turning will remove the thickness variance, but as the rotor wears, the areas with cementite will again become a high spot. Replacing the rotor is the solution for the rotors, but if you are causing too much heat in the rotor and the pad material deposition as a result, then either you must change your driving habits or reduce the rotor temperatures.

[smockers83]

If you're going to need new brakes, I can point you towards some OEM ones for very cheap.

zerothread/250000

I've talked with the guy on AIM, he has 4 sets of rotors and nothing to do with them and he'll throw in pads for cheap, too.

[Magnet 2112]

The other consideration is that for the 12,000 miles, 50 ft of the road I live on is dirt. Granted the town graded it all the time but I wonder if that contributed. They just paved it (thank God! black car+dirt road = nightmare) I do use the M feature to downshift and slow the car down when exiting the highway. Changing my driving habits... hmmm, I would find that very hard. You would think that Infiniti would put a better braking system on a hot car. If a manufacturer makes a fast car, do they consider that what goes fast must stop at sometime??

[smockers83]

What C-Kwik is saying by changing your driving habits to reduce rotor temperature, is that it sounds like you're driving your car on the roads like you were at the track or something. If that's the case and you are braking that hard on a regular basis, then yes, you will have this problem no matter what. The Brembo package is softer than what you have now...more dust, shorter life, but greater stopping power. If you are driving your car like your at the track, get a high performance setup.

[C-Kwik]

It would be tought to assess exactly what is going on with your brakes without being able to do some scientific testing on your brakes. The post I made was to give you a bit of insight into some possibilities. From that, you may be able to try and figure out if there is an actual issue that I described that might be causing your brake issues, or that it might have occurred before you took ownership of the car.

One common situation where the problems I described can occur, even with normal drivers is when someone lives on a long steep hill. Some drivers will ride the brakes all the way to the bottom where they stop at the end, and have to hold the brake while they wait for a green light or for a space to pull out onto the main road. More typical driving situations should not cause this issue. I brought it up in your case as you indicated that you had a pulse prior to your brake service that has now returned, which is typical of judder that occurs when cementite has formed.

The OE brakes on the 06 G35s are more than adequate for performance driving. They are bigger than the 03-04 brakes and even those were pretty good. The 06 brakes are nearly as large as the Brembo brakes. Short of some serious track use, there really shouldn't be that much of an issue. One could easily ruin a good set of very large Big Brake Kit brakes by putting a lot of heat in them and then holding the brakes at a stop or while parked as well. While larger rotors will inherently be subject to lower temeratures for a given amount of braking energy absorbed, the issue I speak of does not necessarily occur out of overheating the brakes. It can occur well within the heat range of your brake pads.

[ocho]

I have an 04 sedan, by march of 07 I replaced oem rotors with sloted ones from SP Performance and HPS pads. My driving is in the city mostly in traffic and mostly all day. Now 20k miles after it's time for new pads which got in today, plan to replace them early in the mornig before taking off to work. My point is that you will get a better product (pads) aftermarket, to proove this, before I swiched I was getting your kind of mileage and lots of dust, now the Hawk prooved to be cleaner longer lasting and btwy the car stops a lot better, yes the sloted rotors have some to do with the stoping power but they also eat about a 10% out of the pad's life. Just my penny if it's worth, hope it helps.

Ocho