Hi everyone,

Well, after a good 4 month honeymoon of owning my 05 DSOM Coupe...it was time for something to go amiss. This past Saturday I noticed that I was getting a metallic sound from what appeared to be the right rear. Didn't think too much, thought perhaps I'd picked up a piece of debris or something.

Fast forward to yesterday driving home from work, I noticed the sound again. It isn't a consistent/constant sound, but one where you can hear something rubbing each revolution. (sorry if that doesn't make a lot of sense, there isn't too great an onomatopoeic word to describe it) The pitch is directly correlated to the wheel speed, and goes away under braking, and remains gone for about a second or two after the brake pedal is released.

Today I got the car jacked up, and after removing a wheel, and doing some pushing and rolling of the car on the garage floor whilst listening for the sound at a reduced volume, isolated it to the right rear as I had initially expected. I was on the phone with my dad, who I would put up against many others when it comes to diagnosing and fixing most automotive issues, off and on throughout this - his assumption was that I have a caliper that's messed up in some way causing a pad to be pressed against the rotor at a high or low spot.

The fun of this is that I've never worked on disc brakes before in all 25 years of my existence. I'm not sure about the specifics of the rear brakes on this car, if this is some sort of common occurrence (although a forum search didn't show it to be), or if I should just call the friendly stealership and tell them to run free with the car.

For those of you on the Readers Digest plan: HELP! My pretty car is making an ugly sound!


Thanks in advance for any responses/guidance!

 

On the brake pads there is a piece of metal that touches the rotors when the pad has worn to thin. When braking it sometimes stops making noise under pressure. If you remove the wheel you should be able to see it. Where are you located?

 

The forum just ate one of my posts...but I'll try and remember what I had just typed in a response.

It didn't appear as if the pads had worn down enough to where a pad that is too thin would be an issue. But, you're dead on with the noise going away under pressure.

The sound wasn't as prevalent/wasn't occurring on the way to work this morning, until the last 1/4 mile or so, when I got on the property here and was driving a consistent 20 mph. On the entire way in there are trees/houses/curbs/guardrails that would all reflect the sound back, so I was expecting to hear it the whole drive, not just the last 1/4 mile.

I'm located in Central Illinois, right on the Illinois/Indiana border.

 

I don't usually bother with brake squealing unless it is caused by the wear sensors but this is a perfect description of what the wear sensor sounds like. You need to pull the wheel and remove the top caliper guide pin bolt from the caliper and let the caliper swing down on the lower bolt. That will let you gain easy access to the pads so you can check them thoroughly. One or both could be tapered. The wear sensor is positioned so it is on the trailing edge of each pad (bottom of rear calipers, top of front calipers) when the rotor is rotating forward. You may have to put a jack under the lower ball joint to lift the hub a little to get enough slack in a stock brake line to allow the caliper to swivel. If the lines are braided stainless and installed correctly there should be enough slack without lifting the hub.

Other things to check are the hub itself since this is also the description of a bad wheel bearing and just to be sure the CV joint at the end of the axle. A bad right rear wheel bearing may make more noise in left hand turns so it is worthwhile to take the car out and zig zag it down the highway at 20 to 30 mph with all the sound producing items shut off so you can listen for the noise and tell if it changes with side loading.

Bill

 

I was changing my brake pads a couple months ago on my '05 and my right rear had problems too. Got the pads out and noticed the inner pad was worn twice as far as the outer. Meaning it was stuck closed on the rotor. Turns out one of the guide pins was frozen. The top actually broke off when I was turning it with the ratchet and the rest was stuck inside the bracket. I tried EVERYTHING to get it out and finally had to buy a new bracket. Check to make sure your caliper moves freely on the guide pins. If not you might have the same problem I had.

 

The good news....everything came apart easily today. The somewhat good news, looks like worn pads, just was the metal wear indicator. The less good news, the inside right rear pad was worn, the outside was barely worn. At this point, due to an overly full plate, I think I'll be replacing pads and getting ready for a much more thorough brake job this fall/winter when the car will be tucked away.

Thanks for the help everyone! It's great to be able to pop in to a forum that I don't frequent too much and get good responses. The downside to hanging around here is I end up wanting to spend more money, and put more miles on the car...even though its gone from 27,9xx to 34,5xx in what will be 5 months a week from today.