Replacing rotors without replacing pads?

I'm looking at getting recall work done on my 1993 XJ, the TSB regarding front rotor corrosion. It says that the dealer will replace the rotors free of charge.

Is it safe to replace the rotors without replacing the brake pads at the same time? The current pads are ~2 years old and have ~20K on them. I was wondering because if the current rotors are warped, won't the pads wear in a non-uniform way? Would replacing the rotors and keeping the old brake pads mean uneven or improper contact between the pad and rotor?

I'm pretty sure I have a warped rotor issue, as the Jeep shakes and the brake pedal pulses when slowing down, I'm just not sure if it is due to the front or back brakes.

For the cost involved just replace your pads. To give you an idea I replaced my front rotors, pads, calipers, new caliper hardware, new front soft lines, rear drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, and full drum hardware kit this past summer. I got most of the stuff from auto zone, and could have saved money buying online. Any how it was around $250 all told. took me about a day out in the driveway and I had never worked on brakes before. I used a haynes and it was as informative as it needed to be. Ive got an 88.

I hear ya, my issues are these:

1) Being a TSB, I can get the new rotors and the labor for putting them on free of charge from the dealership.

2) Being a college kid, I don't the the time and money (and skill) to replace all this on my own

If it turns out that replacing the rotors without replacing the pads is a bad idea, I'll just hold off on it until I start my job in June and get a nice sign-on bonus.

If you are having pulsing on stopping then there is something wrong somewhere. I imagine the warped rotors have certainly deformed your pads in some manner. You could take your front wheel off and check inside the ispection port on the caliper to see how your pads look. when I did mine the pads were so shot that the acual pad surface had let go from the mounting plate. And my rotors were way warped out.

I'd guess that your pads are prolly bad also. But since your jeep is a 93 I'd also take the guess that they are not the factory pads and rotors so I doubt the recall would pertain to your vehicle. Let us know if it does pertain to vehicles that have had the brakes and rotors replaced since I also have a 93 it would be useful info.

The reason I do believe the recall pertains to my Jeep is that when did the whole "send Jeep your VIN to get a parts list" thing, they emailed me back and said that it had that as an recall that was still outstanding on my Jeep.

I had something like that on my 1998 Grand, and once I had already done work to my rotors, the recall was not covered by Jeep. Of course, the Grand's have rotor issues. I was unaware of the same issues on a Cherokee?

For me, if I was doing the rotors, I would also replace the pads, even with inexpensive ones ( meaning not OEM Jeep parts), just because the labor costs involved with going back later to do them. Better to do it when you are there.
Plus the fact of using old pads with new rotors would not work in my little head!!!

It is actually a good idea to not change the rotors and pads at the same time, according to all the tech literature I've read.

The issue is heat. When new pads get heated up, they outgas (and can crack or "chunk out." True - I've seen this happen.)

When new rotors get heated up, they can crack - anything from "heat checking" (minor surface cracks of no consequence) to actually cracking through the disc.

Ideally, you'd have a set of "bedding pads" and a machine to run new rotors in. You'd "bed" the new rotors using the bedding pads, and then install the rotor. The pads, if they have plenty of material, are then ground or sanded flat and reused. I've done rotor replacements where I just hit the pads with a belt sander to flatten them out, and it's worked well.

I don't know if you'll get your pads sanded on TSB/Recall service, but it should be done. The old pads being already bedded in and heat-cycled will actually help the rotor, although you should still take it easy for the first 500 miles or so (avoid panic stops, think ahead, and the like. No towing, either.)