CJ3

I have a 2011 2.4 lt2 auto
3 months old 3400 miles
felt a shuddering in the steering wheel and front end coming off freeway
1-10 10 being severe
a 3-5
cant seem to duplicate on the street.
Anyone have this problem, should be a warranty coverage right?
Comments, experience, solutions appreciated!
Cj

firemangeorge

Being it's basically a new car,yes,take it back to the dealer for warranty work.

843de

Ditto, back to the dealer ye should go. Sounds like your rear drums need adjustment, when they are out of adjustment, the fronts do a disproportionate share of the stopping leading to warped rotors. Make sure that they adjust the rears up, insist upon it, and then they can resurface the rotors.

prod

Yes, they will probably turn the rotors for you.
This is common and will probably happen again, caused by hard braking at those speeds.

LawDog88

Sounds like warped rotors as previously mentioned and not properly adjusted drums as also mentioned.. I usually have both adjusted at each brake job.

CJ3

thanks all for the replies!
to have rear drum adjustments and resurfacing front rotor issues after 3 months and 3400 miles pisses me off!
75 percent of my miles have been city driving solo rider too.
last vehicle was a 1999 gmc jimmy 4x4 4.3 slt with 119 k on it and i never had a brake service. they were perfect the entire use of the car. which was amazing but true!
i got an appt tomorrow to bring her in and will use your advice in my service request.

thanks again all, ill post a update !

cheers!

HipHotRod

As you will find out, the brakes SUCK on our cars.

843de

I think that maybe "SUCK" is a bit too strong of a word to use, but HHR's are a bit under-braked. The big issue is the "self adjusters" on the rear drums that don't "self adjust" worth a hill of beans.

You are also doing some driving that GM defines as "Severe Service" CJ3, 75% city driving is hard on the brakes under any circumstance, they get hot and there is little airflow at city traffic speeds to really cool 'em down before the next traffic light.

I know its frustrating at such a low mileage to have the dreaded "HHR Judder" appear, but once the rears are adjusted up and the rotors resurfaced, you should not have a recurrence of the issue just as long as you remember to keep the rears adjusted up at every oil change/5,000 miles.

CJ3

thx 843

dont make sense, 99 gmc jimmy 4.3 119 k front disc rear drum abs
never a brake service, never an issue.

chevy hhr

chevy/gmc just about the same builder diff name.

smaller engine smaller truck easy smooth driving,
and im hearing brakes get hot??
wtf all brakes get hot, thats what they do, so is there a design flaw here, too small a rotor?
my front rotors feel smooth as silk
is there a better heavy duty pads to istall? put disks on the rear?
is this a remidy
or am i gonna have to stress and trip over breaks getting hot in city traffic and have shudder isssues, then having a brake service every 3 k at the oil change period?

sounds to me that this issue aint normal wear and tear, and there should be a recall and upgrade done for this.

never had this issue ever with any car i have owned, vw, chevy, ford or gmc.

grrrrrr just venting!! lol
thx for help all!!

Mrs. DLVRNIT

As others have stated first get the rears adjusted (we set ours to have a very minimal amount of drag while manualy spinning the rear drum). Although turning the original front disc (warranty remidy) to be flat again the disc will now have hot spots in them and will be suspect to the same issues down the road! GM's front wheel drive design on the HHR's and Cobalt's do transfer large amounts of heat and the disc we beleive are produced with quanity not quality in mind! We did add a big brake kit to the front end of our HHR with no current braking issues!

Best-O-Luck ,