SloopJohnB@mac.com

Perhaps the rotors have rusted from little use and you're hearing the brakes trying to polish the rotors.

Mine will get that ugly sound when I wash the car and put it in the garage overnight without driving it to dry out the brakes. It doesn't seem to do it as much when I drive in the rain because the brakes are hot enough to dry out when the car is in the garage.

But if I don't drive it for a week there WILL be rust on the (OEM) rotors to be ground off.

Lukapalooza

i took off the tire and spun the bearing and it seems like the caliper is too tight and making the pad slightly rub against the rotor. however when i press the brake pedal it does activate the caliper and it fully locks. any ideas of what i should do next?

SloopJohnB@mac.com

As a general rule the square section on the caliper cylinder sealing ring to piston interface will cause the piston to slightly retract from the rotor when brake pressure is released (the square section is distorted as the piston is pushed towards the rotor, discounting hysteresis, the square sections wants to return to square, which pulls the piston back) although there might be some slight contact. In plain speak, the brake pads will slightly contact the rotor...if they're really dragging, however, you might have some issues with the rubber brake lines or corrosion in the caliper cylinder/piston bores. The caliper pistons WILL come out when you hit the brakes but they don't want to relax the slight amount the square seal encourages them to do. A corroded or sticking set of caliper guide pins will also do the same thing. You may notice different wear on the inner and outer pads which could be either piston sticking or caliper pins sticking.

This will generally lead to rapid and/or uneven brake pad wear...if you alluvasudden are getting 15K pad wear out when you used to get 30-35K (my 2K4.2 tears out front pads about 30K ever since new) you might consider rebuilding/resealing the particular caliper that is dragging, including smoothing out the caliper cylinder and piston as well as the caliper guide pins and lubricating everything. The piston must be lubricated with a brake-fluid-compatible grease but the caliper guide pins can use wheel bearing grease or my preference a synthetic grease like amsoil racing grease or even amsoil EP lube designed for low speed pivot pins on construction equipment, etc.


sounds like you're into caliper rebuild or new/rebuilt calipers.

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Also, put the car up on jackstands, engine in gear and wheels rotating and go back to the wheel in question and troubleshoot from there.

You can also remove the wheel in question while car is up on jackstands and put a couple of wheel bolts back in with washers to simulate the wheel thickness (and not lock the rotor when the bolt goes through the hub and hits something) and use engine to rotate that rotor and troubleshoot from there. If sound goes away it's not the caliper....it's possible a bent wheel hitting the caliper...look inside the wheel for scrapes and on the caliper for scrapes.

But now you're getting to low probability issues....a wheel bent so bad it was touching the caliper would certainly be noticeable in ride quality....

Lukapalooza

SO i finally took the take to Dobbs for a free diagnosis and they said that the caliper is "starting to get crusty and is locking up the brakes on the one side." they recommended that I change the back brakes, the calipers, and the rotors grand total $850. There is not a chance in hell I am having them do it but I was wondering from you guys, how much do parts cost for a typical job like that?

I do not think there is anything at all wrong with the rotors. So I think that I just need new caliper and pad. Im going to take the pad off myself and look to see the wear because from the outside, it looks like there is plenty of pad left.