Strange wheel noise on car

Deathwing

As the title says, just trying to figure out an odd noise coming from the front driver's side wheel on my wife's 2001 Kia Spectra - when braking at around 20 MPH or less speeds, you can hear a rhythmic (directly tied to how fast wheel is moving) squeal/squeak noise coming from the wheel, and feel a bit of vibration. Doesn't seem to be affecting handling or braking performance, though, or at least not very much.

Anyone have an opinion or had this happen before? I'm guessing it might have something to do with a brake pad and/or a wheel bearing - car has ~76,000 miles on it atm, and neither have been replaced in quite a while.

Thanks

RUNN1NGMAN

Do you have disk brakes? Maybe a warped rotor, maybe you need new pads?

Deathwing

Yeah, the rear brakes are drum, but the front are disk - seems a little odd that it would only happen on one wheel if it's just worn, but maybe it's loose or cracked or something.

Erandus

Almost certainly brake pads. A lot of pads have an alarm tab such as can been seen at the bottom of this pad:



Once your pads have worn thin enough, the tab starts to make contact with the rotor when you apply the brakes. Thats the most common reason for squeaky brakes, and it's by design. Worn pads can also cause vibrations. Pads often wear unevenly, for a whole lot of reasons, so it's not something to be alarmed about.

If there's less than 1/4th of an inch on your pads, it's time to look at replacing them. If they're around or under 1/8th, you need to replace them in a hurry, or you'll start to damage your rotors before much longer, and that is an expensive issue.

LewieP's Mummy

Wheel bearings.

Erandus

LewieP's Mummy wrote: »

Wheel bearings.

Possible, but would likely act up more often than just while applying the brakes.

Deathwing

Thanks much Erandus, that does sound pretty likely then Will definitely have that checked out when it visits the shop in the near future....Considering it's almost 10 years old at this point, it's done pretty well.

Possible, but would likely act up more often than just while applying the brakes.

Yeah, it only happens when applying the brakes at low speed, and only on that one wheel. If it is the bearing, at least that's still covered (I think) by the powertrain warranty.

Erandus

If you're fairly comfortable with a tire iron, you can check your pads yourself just by taking the offending wheel off for a few moments.



Just make sure you're looking at the right part of the pad:



Its not the metal plate you're interested in but the "soft" pad part itself. If the pad fully wears away, the plate will hit the rotor directly when you apply the brakes and fuck it up beyond all usefulness faster than you'll believe. New rotors are expensive.

Deathwing

I don't think i'd trust myself quite enough to take the wheel off at the moment, thanks for the pics just in case though

Its not the metal plate you're interested in but the "soft" pad part itself. If the pad fully wears away, the plate will hit the rotor directly when you apply the brakes and fuck it up beyond all usefulness faster than you'll believe. New rotors are expensive.

Yeah, those are painful. Due to some stupidity on my part combined with some less than truthful condition info from a dealer, I ended up having to replace all 4 rotors & pads on a used car I had up till a couple years ago.

MrOletta

I just had this happen to me. It was making the noise exactly as you're describing, and I left it alone because it was still breaking fine. I knew better, but I was just being lazy in changing the pads. It got to the point where I lost that safety zone, and it sounded utterly awful - you can imagine what metal grinding on metal sounds like.

In any case, new lifetime warranty pads + 2x 2 year rotors cost me $141 total at my local auto zone. Do NOT just take it into a place, as they will likely charge you $120 per rotor (rotor costs do vary, but mine were $37 a piece and I was quoted $120/ea when calling around).

At this point, you have a couple of options. You can either:

a) take it to a place and have them resurface the rotors - you can only do this once or twice before it gets too thin, and then you have to buy a new rotor anyway. If you take it in without buying new rotors on your own, you risk them telling you that you need new rotors and then they charge you a ridiculous price.

b) buy all the parts at your local auto parts store (again, mine was $141 for TWO 2-year rotors and pads) and then take that to a local mom-n-pop mechanic and ask how much they'll charge you to replace it. Honestly, it's just a little more work than changing a tire if you have the right tools. They'll probably charge you $80-100 for labor.

Do not just take it into a brake place as they will try their hardest to screw you.

Deathwing

I just had this happen to me. It was making the noise exactly as you're describing, and I left it alone because it was still breaking fine. I knew better, but I was just being lazy in changing the pads. It got to the point where I lost that safety zone, and it sounded utterly awful - you can imagine what metal grinding on metal sounds like.

Yeah, not gonna let it get that bad The car is only driven about 10 miles a day atm, but we were planning on taking it in tomorrow anyway for some work, and assuming that the pad is bad (and between here and the other places I asked, inclined to think it is), will have it replaced ASAP - no desire to go through replacing rotors again, believe me.

Thanks again

Tucanwarrior13

It should be the brake pad. They will wear unevenly sometimes for whatever reason. You shouldn't be having bearing troubles though. Your car isn't old enough, and hasn't had enough miles on it to cause a bearing to go.

fuelish

Erandus wrote: »

New rotors are expensive.

I would disagree with this, in most cases.
Stock replacement rotors(not slotted, not drilled) have run $35-70 ,each, for every car I have put them on(VW, Volvo, Honda, Plymouth, Ford, Chevy, same for drums) They work fine, even most of my track day buds use them because they are hard on brakes and they are cheap.
Now if you buy some slotted rotors, which you DO NOT need, they are pretty pricey.

Doing front discs is about the easiest job you can do to a car besides washing it. If the rotors show any scoring at all go ahead and replace them with the new pads.