I've noticed that my car tends to pull to the left under hard braking. I just went out and did some light to moderate braking from about 70 and just lightly had my hands on the steering wheel, and it literally turns under my hands about 5 degrees or so...weird!
I wonder if I have a brake rotor that is slightly warped or something?

 

brake pads???

 

Info on "warpped" rotors


http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp...rakedisk.shtml

I would suspect dirty/contaminated pads & rotor on right side. Spray it down (on both sides of the caliper) with brake cleaner while spinning the brake rotor.

Probably eaiser on jacks with the wheel off.

Take it for a spin & bed the pads

http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_bedintheory.shtml

If you still have the problem You might consider replacing the pads or using a race pad to resurface your rotor to allow you to bed them in again.

http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_padremoval.shtml

 

Check tire pressures. If correct, you probably have an alignment problem. Not likely the brakes.

 

Pads or caliper pistons could be sticking on the right.

 

DaveW is right. It's likely your caliper on the right wheel is stuck. When you press on the brake pedal the left side is clamping but the right side isn't, so the car pulls to the left.
If the rotors were warped you would feel a pulsation when braking.

How often has your brake fluid been changed? Brake fluid absorbs moisture from the air. This causes corrosion which causes the caliper pistons to stick. You're probably going to have to shell out for a new brake caliper.

 

sounds like tire pressure. my car was the same way with a 10lb difference.

 

Another thing to check: my car did this when my swaybar mounts were bent. A new swaybar, MazdaTrix endlinks and upgraded Mazdaspeed mounts fixed the problem.

-s-

 

Thanks for all the ideas, guys. I'll do some more checking. I did jack the car up and checked out the right front brake, it seems to be working correctly. I did notice my rear pads are really worn, so I will replace them soon.
I've always noticed that these cars are very sensitive to the 'crown' of the road. Most roads are elevated in the center and slope slightly to each side. My car reacts to this by wanting to follow the slope, meaning it takes a slight bit of left steering wheel input to go straight.
On a road or parking lot that is flat, my car tracks perfectly straight. So I am not sure about the alignment maybe being off. And the pressures were fine on all four tires.

I guess ANY sort of pull to one side or another is totally abnormal, huh?

 

I had that same problem. Looking at all kinds of things as well.
Turned out the pads weren't properly bedded in.
The solution was to take it out on some country roads and do a number of really hard slow downs from about 70 to about 20.
Fixed it right up.

One thing to do to verify if it's your pads, swap them from passenger to driver side, and vice versa. When I did that the car pulled the opposite direction.
I was also getting more brake dust accumulation on one side.

Hope that's all it is.