drives

Hi all, after a bit of assistance if possible please...

I recently did a trackday (abingdon- good circuit for novices like me and great fun by the way) and then parked the S up for a couple of weeks. Just driven it today and there's a squeaking coming from the n/s. Not sure if this is front or rear at the moment.

First thing I checked for when I heard the squeaking was a wheel hotter one side than the other which wasn't the case. Its constant and increases in speed with rotation but goes away when braking and then comes back again so I've cunningly deduced that it must be related to the brakes?

Having had a quick look at the brakes and pads on all four corners I've noticed that the n/s/r is around half the width of the other side- around 4mm compared with 8mm. These are new OEM pads that I installed myself around 300 miles ago, along with new discs. A bit of searching on here reveals a couple of old posts relating to uneven pad wear on track days (fronts are fine by the way, which incidentally are redstuff. These are old pads and have loads left on them which surprised me a bit- they seemed to have held up pretty well), and interestingly the inner side is referred to- the circuit was anti clockwise so is this normal to get excessive wear on the inner pad with respect to the layout/direction of the track? Incidentally I was driving the car quite hard for around 20 minutes at a time so not sure if I may have overdone it with respect to not leaving enough time for them to cool down.

Lastly, what would you guys advise I do from here? I was going to take the wheels off, double check the slider pins haven't seized but I'd expect the usual one wheel hotter than the other if it was a caliper or is it not this simple? Failing that I was just going to take the pads out and regrease them and go from there to see if that improves anything..

Thanks in advance

lovegroova

I had a similar problem this week, and had a quick rummage around, thinking it was the sliders. It turned out that the inside pad was fitted a bit too tightly in its clips. I removed it, did a bit filing on the edges and all was fine

drives

Thanks lovegroova, just took the pads apart, cleaned everything up and re-greased everything. Re: the pads fitting too tightly in the clips, I take it you mean the metal brackets on the calipers themselves (the flat ones top and bottom)? They're OEM pads- they fit snugly I'd say but not sure how to judge if they're too tight? Took it out for a spin afterwards and the squeaking is almost gone- now its very intermittent but there's a very faint rubbing sound instead which I'm not sure is normal or not tbh. Slider pins are fine

The o/s pad is excessively worn but the inner one is fine, so not sure whats causing this; are there any issues running brake pads which are uneven?

markforrester99

I have found pretty much every aftermarket pad i've ever fitted needs filing to make the pad move abit easier. I find that if its hard to push the pad into the carrier then it will be hard for the pad to move when pressure is applied or released. You can go to the other xtreme where you get pad rattle which is annoying. I always have mine looser than how they come out of the packet because the last thing i want on a trackday is a pad that heats up and gets tighter in carrier and then wont work properly.

drives

That makes sense as it only starts squeaking when it's running hot- I ll take it apart again tomorrow and have another look and file the edges a bit. Also there's a post on the main forum about this issue today where billman suggests that uneven wear is due to the groove on the back of the pad not lined up with the piston correctly so I m going to have another look at this as well

WRCGooseS2K

Squeaking is usually due to the pad material getting too hot and glazing, can happen in normal road conditions if people always apply the same amount of force on the brakes for a long time (like leading up to a junction) this results in the squeaking. Even WRC cars's brakes squeaking cuz they get so bloomin' hot!