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My mom ran her car through a big puddle a few days ago and now there’s a light metallic noise when braking even extremely slightly and sometimes even when not braking such as making a U turn. The sound does get louder when braking harder.
The noise is coming from the drivers front of the car, sound like the wheel.
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I think the best place to start is with a good inspection of the brakes. I’ve seen times where a small rock or debris got lodged in the brake assembly and caused a noise similar to yours. The only way to really know is to take the brakes apart and inspect them, you might consider putting on fresh lubricants while your in there, silicone paste on the caliper slides and anti seize on the brake pad bosses.
Just an update, she said the problem went away a few days later. I’m thinking debris got inside everything. She said the braking performance has not changed at all. I haven’t been over there during the day to look at it.
That sounds exactally like debris in the brake system. Thanks for the update and let us know if anything changes.
Update 2: She had a flat tire that I replaced this weekend and I rotated the tires while I was at it and got a better look at the brakes.
The passenger front was the one where the pads, caliper and rotor were all replaced last year because of it siezing up and damaging the caliper and rotor.
At the time I was sure I asked them to do the pads on the other side but either they didn’t or they wore down really fast.When I got the driver front off there was about a 1/8″ – 1/4″ thick layer of brake dust on the inside edge of the wheels.
The pads look to have a little bit more than 1/8″ inch left. The pads on the other side that I know were replaced look almost new still.And now I know you’re going to ask the car does not pull to the left when braking and there is brake dust on the right side so I’m fairly certain the right side is working.
So I don’t really know for sure if that’s still the old pad or they wore down really fast.
Any way to tell one way or the other?
Also how would I identify an Akebono vs Nissin brake calipers?
I just watched your brake replacement video and it looks like I could almost do this, I actually tried once before but had a small accidente’ that startled my mom too much to continue.
I forgot to set the E-Brake last time and when I jerked on the caliper bolt the car fell off the jack stand and landed on the metal shield that goes around the rotor.
My mom freaked out when she heard what happened and forbade me to continue. (And I’m 33!)
Also a word of note, the way my mom drives…. She’s almost the poster child for “angry driver” She floors it and gets right up on people and then hits the brakes hard. I don’t know why she does this and I’ve even mentioned it to her and she always says “well they slowed down suddenly”
(That may explain why she rear-ended someone once with this car and we had to spend 2200+ to get it running again. (It blew the main fuse that connects to everything)
Also it does appear her front shock/strut has gone bad. The bottom half is covered in a caked dirt/oil mixture. On this car can the front shock absorbers be replaced easily or are they captive inside the spring assembly requiring a spring compressor?
As for the brakes you can identify the caliper maker by the stamp on the caliper itself as they are normally cast into the housing. If it were me I would be replacing the front pads and checking the resistance when I pushed the caliper pistons in (remember to crack the bleeder open!) if you find that it’s difficult to push one side in that caliper could be having issue. It’s also VERY important that the correct lubricants be used in the correct places, in short DO NOT use grease on the caliper slides, silicone paste only, I’ll post my video to show the rest.
It does sound like your having strut issues also and I’d like to recommend OE struts because anything else just won’t ride the same OR last as long.
Here is the video link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAviOGXzEUk
Keep us posted.
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