the other day i was driving home from work through the gorgeous suburbs of piitsburgh when i decided to enjoy the nice spring weather by putting my windows down. out of nowhere i began hearing a horrendous squeal coming from my rear wheel on my driver's side. i'm almost positive it's my brakes pad, anyone else have this problem? if so, can you explain how to replace them? i'm not the best mechanic out there. thanks for any info. by the way i drive an 02 p5 with about 26000 miles.

 

that squeal is your brake pads wearing thin. easy to replace....step one remove wheel. inspect rotor surface for damage, if none proceed step two using a socket wrench remove the top bolt on the caliper and loosen the lower one. step three swing down the caliper and remove the old brake pads. step four open hood and open brake fluid reservoir. step four using a C clamp compress the cylinder in its bore(on the caliper) back to its original position(almost bottoming it out). be careful not go to past the seal. step 5 put brake pad anti squeal lubricant on the BACK of the new pads. step 6 install new pads. step 7 swing caliper back to its original position and reinstall top bolt and tighten both top and bottom. step 8 reinstall wheel. step 9 go to other wheel and go thru steps 1-8. step 10 put top back on fluid reservoir. step 11 pump brakes until brake pressure is acheived....ta-da..you have just replaced brake pads!

 

isn't there a small metal clip you can remove to stop the noise temporarily? i won't be able to replace the pads for a couple of weeks. thanks for the replies.

 

uh...26000 miles and REAR brakes wearing thin??? I haven't worn front pads out in 26K miles!

Something may not be correct with your brake proportioning valve or rear pad clearence.

I would have the dealer do EXTENSIVE searching into this...don't just let them get away with replacing pads or you may be doing this every 26K miles...NOT NORMAL

 

Usually rears outlast about 3 sets of front pads.

 

I agree, the fronts should go way before the rear, as you brake the wieght of the car is thrown forward onto the front wheels , which get pushed harder onto the pavement to give traction and take the brunt of the braking duty. If your rear brakes are worn, It might be a good idea to stop driving with the E-brake lever up. Actually, does anyone know which wheels the Parking brake grips?

 

e-brake = rear wheels.

 

c'mon Rubix... you've never thrown a drift with the ebrake???? LOL

 

don't get me wrong, i'm the first person to crank back on the e brake handle to assit my self around a turn in the winter time. however, i'm not stupid enough to drive with it on.

 

alright, i just went and checked my brake pads and they were perfectly fine. after putting my wheel back on i went for a short drive. not one damn sound coming from back there. anyone have a possible explaination? possibly some debris or some thing like that? thanks for everyone's tips!

 

did you add grease or vaseline to the backing plates of the pads?? Sometimes this will keep noise out. I always add it when I'm doing brakes

 

My organic pads had a sticky tape to apply on the backside on pads. Was this for antisqueel and if so would it not be easy enough to just put a pice of "tacky tape on the back of the pads? "Just throwing rocks around"

 

hmm, I wouldn't put tape of any kind on the pad backing....thats too much of a thickness....pads have to be a set distance from the rotor...

Like I said, just use a thin layer of vaseline or "Syl-glide"....it's about $5 at autozone

 

This has happened a couple of times in the last few weeks on my '02 as well. Oddly enough, it's also the left rear.

The sound really does seem to be the wear indicator (sounds like it, anyway), but the pads have very little wear.

The sound sorta comes on a little at a time, lasts for 20 miles or so, and then seems to go away (maybe after a stop), though messing with the brakes all sorts of diffent ways while driving seems to have no effect, other than the sound not happening while the brakes are applied.

I mentioned this to my mechanic recently and he said he had another customer with a 5 with the same complaint, though he was never able to reproduce it or see anything wrong with the brakes. He finally ended up replacing the pads - though they didn't need it - and he didn't seem to feel like he'd really fixed anything.

Anyone else have this happen and/or have any insights as to what it is?

-jim

 

There's a TSB about this problem, it covers 01, 02 and 03's. Here's what it says:
Symptoms and Conditions Some customers may experience rear brake noise and/or dragging rear brake pads due to the accumulation of rust on the rear brake mounting supports. Repair Procedure When you encounter this concern, replace rear brake pads with improved parts and remove rust from caliper supports. The brake pads have been modified to increase the clearance between pads and mounting supports from 0.15-0.80 to 0.32-0.80. New Part No. BKYT-26-43ZB (Rear Brake Pads with Hardware)