Warped rotor

[Guest John - Oregon]

I've warped a brake rotor on my '01 V11S. I guess this is a common problem since my dealer said I'm the third one to do this and MGNA has been denying warranty claims for this type of problem. Has anyone successfully got them to warranty this? Does anyone have a good spare they can sell me if it doesn't work out? I have the earlier model rotors. Not sure what the new and improved one is like but I've heard the carriers are a different pattern or something. Any warped rotor stories are appreciated.

[jtucker]

Yeah... this is fairly common, and the issue has been hashed, hashed, and re-hashed on the Guzzi mailing list. They will not warranty them. I think the reason that they won't replace them is because often times they are not really warped, but dirt on the carrier buttons will make them *seem* warped. I've heard that a good cleaning can sometimes take care of it, but I haven't done it myself so I can't really give details on the cleaning procedure.

 

Earlier this year, I noticed a fair amount of pulsing from my brakes. I thought it was warped and started making plans to replace it. I never did, however, and after a full season of riding, I can't really notice the pulsing anymore - the problem seems to have worked itself out in my case, which sort of supports the theory that it is just caused by dirt on the buttons.

[Guest Ragin' Pit Bull]

Many times people mistakenly think that they have warped rotors when they feel a shimmy under hard braking (usually from over 100mph) but don't pulsate at lower speeds. This is normal for semi-floating rotors. The best thing to do is to upgrade to full floaters. These will get rid of the shimmy from high speeds.

I warped the rotors on the '98 Ducati ST2 that I had and were replaced under warrantee by Ducati. They replaced them with thicker rotors from the 916 of that year. If you need to replace the rotors, you should at least upgrade to these rotors (Guzzi's use the same rotors as Ducati's) so you don't have the problem again. Optimally, put a set of full floaters on it.

[Guest jeremy]

This happens all the time to my Centauro, I usually get them real hot (braking hard 4, 5 times without going under 15-20 MPH and then keep riding to let them cool, this usually straightens thing out, no gaurentee but try it before you buy new rotors. I have 15000 miles on my bike and have had to do this 5 or so times. This even works on cars from time to time. I used to be a mechanic before I became an engineer (no not the kind that drives trains ) If you get the rotors evenly heated the warp usually comes out

jeremy

[dlaing]

I used to get a pulse that appeared to be caused by warped rotors. I noticed the warp more at low speed.

I lubed the floaters with silicone spray, cleaned the rotor surface, and the problem went away.

The non- Brembo rotors are thinner than many others that are available, so they probably are also prone to warping. Atleast that is the case with my bike. The Rosso and later models apparently had improved rotors. Not sure about the 2001 models.

[Guest jlburgess]

Thanks for your help everyone. I've also now heard from Kelly of Cascade M/C in Portland OR that this has happened to about 6 bikes there so far. He says early V11's had conical shaped washers in the rotor that tend to stick against the rotor over time and it loses the "floating" ability. An updated rotor was later produced with wave shaped washer which has helped the problem, but the early rotors can't accept a washer transplant to his knowledge.

 

He says the solution as some of you have mentioned is to give the rotor a dozen soft blows with a rubber mallet and shoot the washers with WD40, then take the bike out and repeatedly grab a handful of brakes to burn off the residue, although I might try the silicone spray first as other posters have mentioned.

 

It seems this problem is destined to repeat so if anyone has the late model wave washer rotors for sale or a nice pair off a 900SS/SP or 916 Ducati, please contact me at jlburgess@hotmail.com