Long detailed post in coming, I appreciate any help at this point, I'm driving myself crazy.

Car is an 06 base model, non-z51, baby brakes, 133k miles now.

I honestly can't remember if the brakes that were on the car when I bought it started squeaking around 125k, or if I just looked at the pads/rotors and decided to replace it all.

Anyway, I grabbed a set of brake motive (I think, can't find email confirmation) pads and drilled/slotted rotors on eBay. I had good luck with them in the past and figured it would be fine. I cleaned up and reused stock clips, and didn't grease anything. Just slammed it all in. Did normal bed in procedure. I think it was fine for the first day or so, then it would always squeak after driving for about 5 min, and only on light pressure. Basically the exact pressure you use to normally stop the car. Very annoying. Sounded like a car that needed it's brakes replaced.

So then I pulled the pads out, put new clips in, greased the ears and backs of the same brake motive pads, and threw it all back in. Same thing. It would be fine at first, but after a few stops it would squeak on light pressure. Really loud and sounds like crap.

So then I thought it might be cheap pads. Ordered a set of wagner thermoquiets and reused the brake motive drilled and slotted rotors. Once again I cleaned up the now basically new clips, and slammed in the new pads. Good for the first few stops, then it squeaks again, exactly the same. Went on a long road trip (2500 miles through california and nevada), and tried to ignore it. Drove me nuts. So now I was thinking it was because I didn't grease the pads. Part of me was remembering that wagner or some pads said not to grease the back or ears, but I decided to try it. No change.

My buddy and I decided to flush the brake fluid since it was nasty, and put new brake pistons and seals in. Maybe they we're sticking or squeaking somehow. Unfortunately, this didn't change anything either.

At this point I noticed my rotors had heat spots. I drive aggressively, but no track days or anything. Just spirited driving whenever I get the chance. So now I just assumed the rotors were crap quality since they looked horrible after only a few thousand miles. Maybe this was the source of the squeak.

So once again I ordered another set of brakes. I put brand new blank rotors on with the basically new wagner pads, and clips. I cleaned the clips, greased the living hell out of everything that was not the pad surface, put on the wagners and new blank rotors. No squeak like always for the first few miles. Washed the car and took it on the highway to dry it off, and of course it squeaks exactly the same like it always has. Light pressure high pitch. I cant tell if it's coming from one side or anything, it just sounds like the car has old brakes. If you keep the same pressure and let it squeak for like 3-5 seconds, it goes away. But almost always comes back once you let off and reapply.

I'm really racking my brain here and I'm so tired of wasting my time and money. I've always done my own work and hate being defeated by something so stupid.

I'm going to see if wagner will send out another set of pads, but I'm not hopeful that will fix anything.

Is there something else I've missed?

It doesn't look like the pad wear indicators are hitting anything, or any part of the metal clips contacting the rotor that I could tell.

The brakes otherwise feel perfectly fine, and the squeak isn't pulsing or anything. Just a constant high pitch squeak like normal old crappy brakes.

I think one of my old fbody cars did this to me, and being a kid that was fed up with it I'm pretty sure I just ripped out the clips, greased the pads, and threw it back together and it didn't squeak lol. I'd obviously rather not do that, and not even sure if that's it.

 

My wife's Cadillac had the same problem. She had the deluxe warranty so they would pick up the car put new OEM pads on and a month later the same problem. After doing this 3 times she looked at me and told me to do something about it. I bought a rotor and pad kit from Powerstop and 100,000 miles later still no squeal or grinding and no dust. On top of that the car stops in half the distance. I now put Powerstop on everything, I've been doing brakes for 47 years and I've done hundreds of cars and I've used every manufacturer out there. Yes I've run Hawks and EBC as well but I always come back to Powerstop. I put them on my GS and I love them. I did a high speed stop from 130+ and I was stopping so fast I could feel the blood rushing to my face and no fade whatsoever. Another trick I learned, is that I use Amsoil 2000 racing grease on the guide pins. I drive a lot of miles and I would be changing guide pins almost every pad change with the included grease packets. Got tired of the calipers seizing on the pins and tried the Amsoil grease, haven't changed a pin since.

 

If you can pin the squeak down to one wheel, here is something that might help. On higher mileage cars, the flexible brake line that goes from the rigid line to the brake caliper can become defective and you can't tell it by looking at it. What happens is that the internal hose collapses. This allows brake fluid to flow to the caliper when pressure is applied, but when you let off the brake pedal, the hose collapses and traps the fluid against the caliper such that the brake pad maintains contact with the rotor. This could be what is causing your squeak. To test the flexible line, take it off the car and try to blow through it. If you can blow through it, it's still good. If you can't blow through it, replace it.

I also noted that you did not mention lubricating the slide pins in the calipers with disc brake grease. This in important to do, otherwise the caliper will lock up after a while and not allow the pad to move away from the rotor, with results similar to what I stated above.

 

My 06 Z51 does the exact same thing. I will be watching this thread for hopefully a solution. The squeal is only when you apply light pressure to the brake pedal, push hard, it goes away, take your foot off the pedal, it goes away.. It is very embarrassing rolling up to a crowd of people and all you hear is brake squeal echoing away from your car. My car only has 45,000kms / 27000miles and to my knowledge still has all the factory brake parts.

 

Sure it's the brakes and not a wheel bearing?

 

Mine was doing that with only 9500 miles, that's why I put the Powerstop pads on.

 

Just did Hawk HPS pads and Delco rotors. Factory pads would squeal from glazing. A couple hard stops at the dragstrip from 120 would keep them from squeaking for a month or so.

 

This is your problem. You don't want to get grease on the pad side or surfaces of the rotors, but any other metal to metal contact points needs to be lightly brake greased, including the pack of the pads to the pistons and clamping areas as well. As pressure is applied to the brake pads, they will vibrate in the calipers to have the steel against steel squeal, until enough pressure is applied to the pedal to lock the pad into the caliber solid so it not vibration squealing in the calibor.



Also, when you are doing the brakes, pull pins #5 to apply grease to their shafts, and in the caliper bracket #9 channels, so you don't end with dry steel to steel there as well.


Bottom line it, back and sides of pads get a light coat of grease, the guide rods to bracket channels get a light coat of grease, and any where in the caliper that has metal to meta parts, or where the pad is going to contact it, get a light coat of grease a well.

If you end up taking the car to the car wash every week, then it just a mater of time until you power wash the grease off the steel parts to cause the brakes to start to squeal, and will need to pull the pads again, to re-grease the parts.

Short off all of this, and not using race pads that the pad to rotor surface will make noise on contact, if you are one of the guys that starts to apply the brakes lightly two blocks back, then stop 20 feet short of the car in front of you, the plays the brake creep game forwards during the entire light to close the huge gap between you and he car in front of you, then good chance that you glazed up the pad and rotors.

If such is the case with glazing due to too much light brake use/light riding of the pedal, then go find an areas that you can get the car up to speed, then apply the brakes hard, to remove this glazing and solve that problem. Church parking lots are good for this, since they are vacant most off the time, including Sundays now with the Pandemic.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I greased the slide pins on the initial brake job, and confirmed yesterday that they are well greased and move freely.

I did not grease the clips the first time, but have greased them a couple times since, as well as the backs of the pads. No change.

I am positive it isn't a wheel bearing, as I think it would squeak or vibrate all the time. This is only on light pressure braking, no vibration.

The brakes work perfectly otherwise, hard stops don't change anything. Like I said, I drive the car aggressively, so there's no way the pads are glazed.

I pulled the brakes apart again the other day before going to the drag strip, thinking about the metal clips. I probably should have reused the stock ones. I'm pretty sure they fit better than these.
I noticed that the rear clips were extremely close to the outside edge of the rotor (non braking surface), and could probably drag against it and squeak. I bent the hell out of those things and hope they would stay away.
The aftermarket clips have some slight side-side movement inside the caliper, even with the pad in place. I thought about removing them, but noticed the pad had a ton of movement without them, and figured that noise/feel would bother me just as much.
If you look closely between the pad/rotor with everything assembled, you can see the metal clips "peeking" out from behind the caliper, basically because they are wider than the caliper itself. This gets them very close to the rotor (braking surface), and could touch. I noticed it more on the front.
I bent the rear ones as much as I could , and made the tabs "hug" the caliper so they had less movement and almost no peeking. On the fronts, I actually trimmed them down, because they would always peek out and moved very easily.

Like I said, pretty sure I had this same issue on an old fbody, don't remember if I trimmed to fix, or removed them all together, or bought different clips.

Either way, no luck, it still squeaks almost exactly the same. I say almost, because it does it a little less, but I haven't driven the car much. I'm pretty positive its the clips at this point. Can't really be anything else. If I get motivated today, I'll pull the clips completely and see if it squeaks at all. Probably order new clips because why not, everything else has already been replaced 2-3 times lol.

Will update if I ever solve this super annoying issue.

 

It seems that you didn't investigate the possibility of collapsed flexible brake lines. I don't know if that is causing your problem, but you seem willing to investigate everything to solve this problem, so I am just offering this reminder.

 

No indication of a collapsed brake line, stops normal, doesn't pull to one side, visually all look fine. All corners bled fine when I swapped pistons and changed fluid.

Tried timming down the clips to where there is no way they would touch anything, still squeaks.

Removed clips entirely, still squeaks.

It doesn't squeak immediately, takes like 10-15 min of normal driving to start squeaking.
So to me, that means temperature, or something moves after I have re-assembled it.

Doesn't seem like it would be temperature, they aren't that hot, and when I get them hot, it still squeaks.

So I'm guessing there's something moving that I haven't found, that is touching something its not supposed to.
Or, I got 2 sets of bum pads/rotors that both squeak.

Going to see if Wagner will send out a new set of pads, after that... I really don't know. I've replaced literally everything multiple times besides the calipers themselves.

 

Just did my brakes. They have squeeked the two years I have had the car. Noticed if I drove car below 50 degrees they wouldn’t squeak.
had the original drilled rotors and pads that came with MagRide option.

 

"No indication of a collapsed brake line, stops normal, doesn't pull to one side, visually all look fine. All corners bled fine when I swapped pistons and changed fluid."

None of the things you mentioned are symptoms of a collapsed fuel line. If you have a collapsed brake line, it won't pull to one side. It will visually look fine (because the collapsed part is inside where you can't see it), and the bleeding process will be unaffected. I don't know if a collapsed line is causing your squeak, I'm just saying you haven't ruled it out. In order to rule it out, you need to remove the line (or at least disconnect both ends of it) and try to blow through it.