B serious

Have you checked/cleaned/greased the PAD slides? How is the pad hardware?

Using silicone paste instead of normal grease will help with all this. Idk what ultra lube is made from. Good brake grease is PTFE based .

Does your caliper still have the pad hold-downs?

Car Analogy

How do you know its rears and not fronts? You had uneven rear pad wear, but maybe that was a legit rear issue, which is maybe now fixed, but fronts still dragging?

If you drive around without using brakes much, then glide to a stop, are rotors hot? Which ones, rear, front, which side?

You can buy a laser thermometer cheap from Harbor Freight. Point at object, pull trigger, readout shows temp. Very handy. Laser confirms what you're measuring.

Also, what did you use to screw the piston back in when pads were replaced?

sola77

If your problem has not yet been fixed check the following - Remove or slide caliper out of the way, remove the pad - if a moderate amount of force is required the pad may be binding against the rotor. This happened to me on a rear brake. First I changed the hoses and then the calipers, but was still getting mild brake odor and a mildly hotter rim temperature. When i was removing the outer pad I noticed how it was really stuck in there. Ended up cleaning the caliper bracket and filing the pad backing plate at the upper and lower attachment points so when installed the pad was a more comfortable fit. Problem SOLVED for me! Also worth mentioning that it took a few weeks for the outer 1/2" or so of the rotor to clear itself off after developing a minor browning strip - so I surmise that it was this part of the pad that would ever so slightly be rubbing - and wearing, against the rotor, so was not really applying pad there after the 'fix'. In short you will know if the pad/bracket fit is the culprit when you go to remove those pads. If a bit too tight you found your problem. Hope this may be of help to someone!

B serious

^Yeah. What he said. Pad slides.

Cpt. Spock

Pad hardware seems fine, the pads do not stick or have a hard time getting in and out. I believe permatex is NOT silicone based, maybe i will switch next time i look at it (its been in the teens all week weather wise...)

definitely the rears dragging. the rears definitely "feel" hotter. I jacked the car up and tried to spin the wheels. fronts were fine, rears felt like the e-brake was on. I used a 3/8 rachet to screw the piston back in, i just didnt pay attention to "lining them up", i dont recall making sure those were supposed to be in a proper position.

Thank you for the response, i will check my pad slides as well once i get back out there to diagnose. The pads did not have any issues sliding in and out of the hardware, but wouldnt hurt to inspect/clean/grease them anyway. Traveling for work this coming week, hoping to get to the bottom of this next weekend.

starchland

Cpt. Spock

They were somewhat difficult to retract, more-so the drivers rear from what i remember. would that mean the piston/caliper could potentially be slowly failing?

sdosmil77

I was having same probs with my S and I even had to use boost to just move the car and as soon as I let off gas it stops on its own. Replace the calipers and do the billman250 bleed technique and itll be much better. Make sure that when you receive the replacement calipers that you inspect for correct pins. Some places (pep boys) rebuild the calipers with incorrect pins

suprajayaz

Interested to hear if anything helped. My rear passenger caliper having similar issue so I replaced both rear calipers / pads and ensured inner pad nub alignment and bled all 4 in the Billman order 2x. Have IR thermometer on order to quantify the issue.

s2000sccaracer

Have you checked the brake hoses? I have seen the hoses swell on other cars and prevent the caliper pistons from retracting. My son's S had a dragging rear caliper when we put it away for the winter. We will need to dig into it in the next few months to see why it is dragging.