Had to share this one with the forum. I've been driving new vehicles for some time. Recently my 2006 HHR (6000 miles) starting vibrating terribly when braking. Took it to the Chevy dealer and they told me that my rotors needed to be cut. At 6000 miles! They cut the rotors and now the car is functioning like new. Just wondering if anyone else has had this experience with their HHR. Hope this won't be happening on the regular. Any suggestions if it does happen again?

 

Yep! Suggestion is to drive with 1 foot, not 2 .
Just kidding~!!! Welcome to the forum... ... ...
In all seriousness- I agree... rotors should NOT have to be spun at 6K miles unless your an auto-crosser (but then you wouldn't have stock brake components anyway) or some kind of mad-man Fed-X delivery person!!!
I've experienced some 'shimmy' (best way to explain it) during accleration AND deceleration at or around 60mph... and after I had the dealer throw a bunch of parts at it (typical ) - it still 'shimmys'.
There WAS another forum member that had the same gripe - but I'm unsure of who and how many miles. One question- how'd the pads look when the dealer took off the rotors? If they were good, maybe GM was supplied with a bad batch of rotors??
Also - not sure if the rotors off the HHR cross-reference to a Cobalt, but we do have some Cobalt fans here who may be able to tell you if they've experienced similar issues. As for me... I've got 14K on mine (mostly highway- with some pretty unanticipated high-speed stops !) and no rotor-related issues to date (Thank God).
It's not like this thing weights over 5000lbs~!~!~!~!

 

Another cause of this problem is overtightening the front wheels during tire rotations, etc. Make sure you tell whoever is doing the work to only torque the wheels to 75-ft/lbs - no more! Pad life has been really great on all the HHR's we have seen. The majority of warped rotor problems we've encountered so far have been from wheel overtightening, not high-speed braking in water or rain driving.

Just a head's up.

 

My rotors had to be REPLACED at 8,000 miles, the service writer told me when I picked the vehicle up that it might be a good idea to get a set of aftermarket rotors and put them on my HHR.

 

yep.. sounds like they wouldn't want everyone to complain.. and make a recall.
but I suggest to make a comment to GM anyways..

 

The Chevy HHR service manual says to torque the lug nuts to 100 lb ft on clean AND dry threads. Use NO LUBRICANT !
"Tighten the nuts evenly and alternately to avoid excessive runout of the tire and wheel assembly."
The key is to go around and around increasing torque by about 20 lb ft until the correct torque is reached.

Now don't shoot the messenger

 

Had to get my rotors turned. Should`ve been done at 6,000 mi. oil change but serv. mang. said the use of armorall would cause squeak. Made sure the problem was fixed at 9,000mi. oil last week. Squeak was driving me crazy, not to mention embarassment. Looking good, and you could hear me coming.
Nothing to do with driving style, probably bad rotors...

 

I had my rotors turned/cut 3 times under warranty

these brakes plain suck

 

Well guess what DDock.
I purchased my HHR on Feb 18,2006 I started to feel a funny ride from the front end, My Dealerdhip Skyway Chevrolet who advised me that I needed to pay to have my brakes repaired, So I went to Shepard Chevrolet in Lake Forest IllinoisThey said my Rotors need to be replaced and that they were shot. They replaced them and my Brakes and didn't cost me a penny I only had 22,000 miles on it. It rides like the day I purchased and even looks good.
Good luck with yours.

 

Yep. Sure enough; that's what the manual says. But after managing 4 different tire and off road shops, I can tell you that you're asking for problems with that torque. Most wheel shops actually use special "torque limiter" extensions:



...when installing wheels to prevent overtorquing and tweaking rotors. This keeps the wheel shops from getting sued for warping your rotors.

I hand torque my wheels to 75ft/lbs every time I put them on (which is a few times a month!), and have had no problems with warpage or loose wheels, even driving in excess of 100mph (during testing).

Hope it helps,