This study investigates the effects of operating conditions on the chattering of an automotive disk brake by experimental and computational methods. Design factors, which cause chattering in automobiles, have attracted great attentions for long time; but they are not well understood yet. For this study, we construct a brake dynamometer for measuring the disk surface temperature during chattering, and propose an efficient hybrid algorithm (combining FFT-FEA and traditional FEA program) for analyzing the thermo-elastic behavior of three-dimensional brake system. We successfully measure the judder in a brake system via the dynamometer and efficiently simulate the contact pressure variation by the hybrid algorithm. The three-dimensional simulation of thermo-mechanical interactions on the automotive brake, showing the transient thermo-elastic instability phenomenon, is presented for the first time in this academic community. We also find from the experimental study that the disk bulk temperature strongly influences the brake chattering in the automotive disk brakes.