Hi Guys,

Rotor warping and pad deposits may feel the same but they are different things (root causes). I spent a lot of time working on rally/racecars where the symptoms of these things are far more noticable.

Rotor warping, is where the rotor is no longer a flat pancake shape, and/or no longer uniform thickness. This can happen for a bunch of reasons. Common with cheap aftermarket rotors..

At the same time, or independantly, you can get uneven pad material buildup. If you look at the rotor surface, there is usually some resin that is deposited there from bedding in brakes. This needs to be a nice smooth layer, laid down by bedding in the brakes. If the layer is not smooth, each time you brake, the pads may grab at the little mountains in the layer, leaving a LITTLE more material in that spot each time, eventually building up a series of lumps. This will be felt as slowly progressively worsening brake shudder.

You can have pad material issues regardless of wether your rotors are perfect or not.
ie: can have warped rotors, warped rotors + pad material problems, or perfect rotors + pad material problems.

Pad material problems I had were usually because I'd changed brand of pads / usuing new low quality pads on fine but used rotors.

This method of bedding in has served me well over the years (and over 50 sets of pads). The method *might* be a bit aggressive for an X5? I can't advise on that. I'm on my 2nd pair of pads on my X5, and did a gentler version of this bedding in..

I personally tend to use genuine BMW parts where I can, because the cost of the labour to replace these things in AUstralia is usually more substantial than the part cost. REgarding the Meyle parts and stuff, I believe they're not bad from the start; but what's been seen in here in OZ, is that they tend to wear out quickly ( sometimes in < 12 months), and so may not be an overall saving...

HTH

Cheers,
Scott.