I've had an ongoing problem with vibration under braking for months. It started more or less out of the blue in late December. It began as a moderate vibration that only occurred with a light-medium pedal effort; very light braking didn't cause it nor did heavy braking. Over time the vibration has been getting worse, to the point where it really shakes the car badly, and is occurring under more braking conditions. Now it's pretty much only heavy braking that doesn't lead to any vibration.
At first I thought this was pad deposits. I re-bedded in the pads multiple times. I took the brakes apart for inspection and went over them with a wire wheel. There was a minor pad imprint in one spot but nothing major. I can't imagine that pad deposits would persist this long.
I had the wheels off over the weekend and checked all of the control arms for play, but there was nothing obviously wrong. (But realistically I'm not sure what I'm looking for.)
At this point I am ready to start throwing parts at it, unless someone can suggest a way to test for specific problems.
Things I could replace (ordered by my guess at the probability of fixing the problem):
1) Control arms (never been done, have 100k miles on them)
2) Wheel bearings (ditto)
3) CV joints/axles (?)
4) rotors
Suggestions or comments?