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Where'd the rest of the rotor go?

SPL db

SPL db

It's all about the music!
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We had some brake noise coming from our 2009 Chevy Silverado 2500.

Sounded like brake pads, didn't hear the indicators, but heard what sounded like metal to metal and
felt grinding through the brake pedal.

Bought new pads for both the front and rear.

Started by replacing the front pads. Plenty of meat on them, but a lot of heat stress cracks in the
the pads, I have the new ones, so changed them out.

Pulled the rear wheels and found half of the right rear rotor gone! :yikes:

The caliper over extended and fluid was coming out from behind the dual pistons.

Had to go buy two new rotors and replace both rear calipers (the driver's side looked okay save the
pads, but I wasn't going to chance it).

The ABS system got bled dry due to the caliper overextending. Tried for six hours to bleed the air out
of the system, but found online that only a dealer has the tool needed to bleed the ABS system.

Gotta have that done this week.

Anyone ever seen a rotor do this before?
 

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I have absolutely no idea how one could have that happen and not notice LONG before it got to that point.
 
I saw one much like that at a Chevy dealer in the early 1980s. It came off the front brakes on a B-body Impala or Caprice, if I recall.
 
Seen pics of that before. :lmao:

Good that you took care of that as you could have had even more damage to say nothing about not being able to stop very well.

Murray
 
When it let loose, it might have cracked in bit and departed the vehicle. If not, than aliens took it...... I'm not talking about south of the border here!
 
I had replaced the front pads, took it for a test drive, and was going to come back to do the rear pads.

While I was out for my test drive, I lost most of the pedal.

When I got back home, that's when I noticed the brake fluid from the right rear.

It must have been about to go and my test drive was the final straw.

Strange thing was it didn't even touch the backing plate at all. Not even a scratch!

I'm just glad it didn't go while pulling one of our trailers with a full load!
 
I wonder if that rear caliper was stuck on and you just drove it that way long enough to eat everything up. My maxima did something kind of similar. The caliper hung up one day on the way to work. It had been stuck (and I wasn't aware) retracted enough to not drag and that day it just popped forward. Thankfully I was at work when it happened and fixed it during the day. This happened shortly after I got the car and the brake pedal had always been too touchy, but I wasn't familiar with the car yet.

Glad nothing bad happened.
 
SPL db said:
. . . I'm just glad it didn't go while pulling one of our trailers with a full load!
Click to expand...

BTDT and it sucks. I blew a rear brake line on an old Chevy 1500 pickup while towing a 6,000 lb boat. The first red traffic light was almost more excitement than I could handle. :yikes:
 
Oh, you got the optional GM rotors that have radial cooling. You need to send them $1,000,000 if the option was not listed on the build sheet.

I've seen plenty of broken rotors but none with that type of failure.
 
I talked to a few brake places around here and they say that's pretty common.

Usually happens on 97-02 Dodges most of the time, but they have seen a few Chevys that its happend to.

Always the right rear for some reason... :scratch2:
 
SPL db said:
I talked to a few brake places around here and they say that's pretty common.

Usually happens on 97-02 Dodges most of the time, but they have seen a few Chevys that its happend to.

Always the right rear for some reason... :scratch2:
Click to expand...

The right side lives in a harsher environment and problems with front rotors are more likely to get timely attention.
 
I've seen something similar.

Saw a brake rotor that came off of a 1973 Opel Manta. Lady had driven it, to the point where she WORE THROUGH the inner radius of the right front brake rotor- and the friction surface COMPLETELY DETACHED from the hub, even though it was one cast/machined assembly originally! There's the hub, and there's the detached annulus- what used to be the friction surface- loose, banging about, hanging there in the caliper!

She brought it in because "suddenly, it pulls really hard to the left when I put on the brake". Well, duh... yeah, that would NATURALLY happen, when the brake isn't ATTACHED to the rotating wheel hub anymore!

And this was a SOLID rotor!

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Rotors will wear thin, and sometimes eventually crack.
That's why generally, you can only turn a rotor....once.


Steve
 
You are the 2nd person I ever know that happened to. The first time I seen it happened to one person is years ago. But yours is WORSE. Amazing you still had functional brakes. :D
 
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