1989 Honda Accord Shakes when braking

Hi there,

Thank you for the donation,

When you are breaking, is the vibration in the body or the steering, and can you feel any pulsation in the brake pedal?

Mark (mhpautos)

It shakes the body of the car and I feel the steering wheel shaking but the brakes are not pulsing but they change. Sometimes they will get hard just out of no where and other times they feel kind of squishy.

Hi there, start with having the rear wheels and tyres check for faults, body vibration under braking is usually here, and get the booster checked as well as this may be the cause of the hard /soft pedal issue,

mark (mhpautos)

[quote:590e43cdd6="mhpautos"]Hi there,

Thank you for the donation,

When you are breaking, is the vibration in the body or the steering, and can you feel any pulsation in the brake pedal?

Mark (mhpautos)[/quote:590e43cdd6]

The whole car shakes when I hit the brake. You can feel it in the steering sometimes and the body shakes every time I hit the brake. Sometimes worse than othersl. But no pulsing in the pedal.

AS i said, body vibration is generated at the rear wheels, get that checked first then we can look at the steering vibration.

Mark

[quote:9f54cfcbbc="mhpautos"]AS i said, body vibration is generated at the rear wheels, get that checked first then we can look at the steering vibration.

Mark[/quote:9f54cfcbbc]
We have done the back wheels also. The brakes were done three seperate times (discs and shoes) in case they were defective parts, the ball joints and control arms were replaced and the wheel bearings, all in the back. The front brakes were done three times (pads and rotors), the rack and pinion was replaced and inner and outer tie rods. That was my original question, what else could make the car shake like that? The whole body shakes and you can feel it in the steering.

OK back to basics,

Any vibration felt in the steering must be transmitted through the front wheel, the vibration is due to an out of balance rotation, so we must check Front wheels, front brake rotors, wheel bearings, drive shafts, looses or defective steering, serious alignment problems due to bent frame or mis aligned sub frame, bent steering arms, an alignment will pick up and bent steering and body alignment problems, as you know wheel problems and drake issue can be the cause of around 80% of this type of vibration, do not fall into the trap of presuming what has been checked is OK, i would start again, and make sure that the mechanic is qualified and his equipment is calibrated and not giving false readings, go back to basics and let me know how you get on.

mark (mhpautos)

[quote:da6674f36a="mhpautos"]OK back to basics,

Any vibration felt in the steering must be transmitted through the front wheel, the vibration is due to an out of balance rotation, so we must check Front wheels, front brake rotors, wheel bearings, drive shafts, looses or defective steering, serious alignment problems due to bent frame or mis aligned sub frame, bent steering arms, an alignment will pick up and bent steering and body alignment problems, as you know wheel problems and drake issue can be the cause of around 80% of this type of vibration, do not fall into the trap of presuming what has been checked is OK, i would start again, and make sure that the mechanic is qualified and his equipment is calibrated and not giving false readings, go back to basics and let me know how you get on.

mark (mhpautos)[/quote:da6674f36a]

So in other words, if it's not the front brakes, rack and pinion, inner or outer tie rods, rear brakes, rear control arms and ball joints or the rear wheel bearings, you can't tell me what else it could be, right? I know that my mechanic is qualified, and his equipment is fine. I did go back to basics and I want to know if you know of anything else, besides the things I have listed for you several times, that can make my car's body shake when I hit the brakes. Again, that was my original question: What, BESIDES the things mentioned, could cause the body of a car to shake when hitting the brake?

There will be nothing else that will cause a steering vibration under braking....... about the only other thing that i can think of would be miss alignment of the brake rotor on the hub, may be there is some foreign matter between the rotor and the hub? the generation of the vibration under braking is directly related to rotors, pads & calipers as if any other item was at fault you would normally have this vibration all the time. with out experiencing this first hand, i am at a disadvantage so i can only suggest what i feel is the cause under normal operation conditions.

Mark (mhpautos)