Need help diagnosing cause of warped rotors, noise while turning

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give some back story...I have a problem that goes back a long time that I've just sort of given up on trying to solve for a while because it seemed like every time I tried to do something about it the problem would just come right back and I'd have wasted my money. I used to take my car to my brother-in-law who I've grown to not really trust with my car any more (I'll explain why in a moment) so I'm posting this to see if anyone else has ever experienced a similar problem to try and find the cause and avoid repeating the same mistakes all over again.

Not very long after I first bought the car I got the feeling that the bearings in the front wheels needed to be replaced, due to a noise I could hear that changed or went away while turning, specifically you would hear a rhythmic noise seemingly coming from the front-left wheel while driving strait that would get a little worse if you turned to the left and virtually go away while turning right. I used to drive an old nissan sentra that had a bearing go bad in a back wheel and it reminded me of the way that car sounded when turning one way.

I only had him replace that one bearing but being a bit nit picky about trying to maintain matching conditions on both sides I had him go ahead and replace the other front bearing shortly after. I partly did this because there was a subtle, likely un-problematic sound, that was bothering me, which did not change after having the other bearing replaced but nothing got any worse after the work. At least not at first anyway.

Not long after I got the work does I noticed a new noise start to come from the front right wheel while braking. The sound was a kind of loud creaking/low-squeaking sound that would repeat at speed with the wheels, and strangely remain even when braking at sub-idle/coasting speeds... like you could crawl at a snails pace while holding the brake and hear this eeeeeeeeaaaaaaeeeerrrrrrrr kind of sound. It wasn't the brake pads; there was still plenty of pad. What ultimately was creating the sound was the pads being pushed back and forth by the rotor, which as it turns out had become slightly warped for some reason, but I didn't really realize that at first. Their bandaid solution was to add a little lube to the back of the pads to get rid of the noise.

A few weeks later I somehow got a small piece of gravel lodged between the front right rotor and it's heat shield, leaving a gash in the rotor... so I decided to have it replaced by the same brother-in-law.

About a week after that rotor was replaced the same problem seemed to come back up; a rhythmic creaking sound that would follow the speed of the tires and get louder when slower.

I don't remember what I've had done since, very little, but I think I had both front rotors replaced at the same time mistakenly thinking "if they're both perfect then there's no way they could imbalence each other"... I was thinking if one was warped it could possibly cause the other to warp due to steering force while breaking; you know how a warped rotor makes the steering wheel shake and so I thought maybe that could also affect another rotor on the opposite side over time via breaking... kind of a dumb theory...

Long story short, I have a car now that certainly has warped rotors (lots of shake in the steering wheel when braking, wheels feel out of balance, even after getting new tires with balancing and alignment done) and I am concerned the bearings are bad again because when I turn, like on a entrance ramp, I hear a kind of rhythmic, tonal (speed effect tone/note of the sound) which goes away when driving strait... I don't know if it's the brakes rubbing or something else, something worse.

So, down to the decision making...

A friend of the family told me that he had once heard of rotors on cars becoming warped because the mechanic used an impact driver to tighten the lug nuts... and I'm pretty sure the brother in law used an impact driver when he did work on the car. Presuming that is what has caused the rotors to become warped after being replaced is it possible that this might cause any damage or irregular wear and tear to the new bearings that were installed a year or two earlier? Might I possibly be able to remedy all this by simply replacing the rotors myself, using a torque wrench to tighten the lug nuts, or is it possible all of this is being caused by something else beyond the rotors?

http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/-warped-brake-disc-and-other-myths

With one qualifier, presuming that the hub and wheel flange are flat and in good condition and that the wheel bolts or hat mounting hardware is in good condition, installed correctly and tightened uniformly and in the correct order to the recommended torque specification, in more than 40 years of professional racing, including the Shelby/Ford GT 40s – one of the most intense brake development program in history - I have never seen a warped brake disc.

Rotors can warp from uneven overtorquing of lugnuts, so if his impact gun was set to something ridiculously high, then yes. Or maybe the mounting surface isn't even/smooth, etc. I always manually torque the lugnuts to about 75-85 ft-lbs uniformly on all wheels.

With one qualifier, presuming that the hub and wheel flange are flat and in good condition and that the wheel bolts or hat mounting hardware is in good condition, installed correctly and tightened uniformly and in the correct order to the recommended torque specification, in more than 40 years of professional racing, including the Shelby/Ford GT 40s – one of the most intense brake development program in history - I have never seen a warped brake disc.

I don't know what a "hub" is exactly, but I do know that in the very beginning when I had the first rotor replaced on the front left my brother-in-law said that "the hub was very worn"... or something like that. Again, just spit shooting here, but replacing the bearing wouldn't magically fix the wear he saw on the hub, would it? What might have caused this wear in the first place? The original bearing? Something else, like the wheel flange (again, don't know exactly what that is)?

Likely related to this problem is a smell that I have noticed come off the car after driving even short distances, a smell that does not seem to come from the car even if you let it sit in a driveway for a long time with the engine running. Sort of a burning smell, similar to hot brakes but I've never seen any smoke or similar come away from the car. My worry is that I am causing damage to something due to this old problem not being properly solved.

Hub, wheel flange, etc... it all boils down to this: the metal surfaces that are contacting each other must be flat. Your wheel bearing is inside the hub. The rotor attaches to the hub. The wheel attaches to the rotor. They must be clean and in good condition.

The smell... sounds like burning brake pad. You may have a seized piston. Put your hand near the wheel when you smell that and see if you can feel a lot of heat coming from it. Then check the other side.

I changed my oil and transmission fluid this weekend and I think the smell I'm smelling after driving is actually oil. It looked like the gasket on my oil pan needs to be replaced.

Going to get some new rotors put on sometime this week, along with some pads and will go get the tires balanced right after. Hopefully that clears up the warping.

Replacing stuff isn't going to help you with anything except emptying out your wallet. Did you read that article I linked thoroughly and carefully?

If the mating surfaces of the parts is in bad shape, they must be replaced. If those are okay, then you should be looking at other things, like seized caliper pistons, etc.

If those are okay, then you should be looking at the type of brake pads you're using. If you're using stock brake pads, get rid of them and get something else. You might simply be overdriving the pads.