Brakes squealing again...

[REBELXSi]

So I started hearing the usual Civic X brake squeal from my driver's side front wheel again. I took this into the dealer before and they fixed it by replacing the clip/retainer or whatever, pictured. That was about 10 months ago. Well, as I was driving last night I heard it coming on during my left turns just like last time.

Today it got louder so I thought, I'm at 51k so maybe I need brakes so I decided to check them out and there's still plenty of beef on the pad (at least the outside pad) so I'm assuming it's the aforementioned clip/retainer. It kinda looks like it might be rubbing on the outer edge of the rotor if you look closely at the pic attached.

Has anyone come up with a fix for this? Is it inevitable? Any quick fixes? I really don't want to take my brakes apart lol

 

[REBELXSi]

Went away for a week and after a bit of driving on a winding roads (making left turns) it came back.

Anyone got any input or should I start a thread asking if I can quad turbo my Si

 

[civicmanic]

I'd take the brakes apart, clean and lube where needed and get a new hardware kit.

 

[REBELXSi]

I'd take the brakes apart, clean and lube where needed and get a new hardware kit.

Yeah, that seems to be what "solved" the issue 25k miles ago. Just really wondering if this is normal/common... and if there might be quicker solutions.

 

[SDAlexander8]

have you ever gotten the brakes so hot that they start to fade or shake when you brake hard?

 

[REBELXSi]

have you ever gotten the brakes so hot that they start to fade or shake when you brake hard?

Nope.

 

[SDAlexander8]

Nope.

You still have some chonky pads for 50k miles... id see what happens after getting the brakes super hot, like a bedding procedure for new pads and rotors.

or maybe get a pressure washer in there at a car wash that has a self serve bay. Idk

 

[REBELXSi]

You still have some chonky pads for 50k miles...

Yeah, I did not expect to see that much "meat" left at nearly 52k.

 

[REBELXSi]

You still have some chonky pads for 50k miles... id see what happens after getting the brakes super hot, like a bedding procedure for new pads and rotors

You think that's necessary at such high miles? I'm open to whatever ideas ?‍

 

[SDAlexander8]

You think that's necessary at such high miles? I'm open to whatever ideas ?‍

I Don’t know. You must not be hard on the brakes. Mine are way more worn at 44k. But i’m hard on them. I’ll go out onto some windy country roads for a 20-30 mile drive and go into each turn like i‘m on a track and my brakes will get so hot they’ll vibrate.

never had the squealing sound like they’re needing to be replaced...

 

[civicmanic]

What are the rear pads like? They could be the culprit. I know when my rears were 100% shot, the fronts looked like yours. The rear pads are so tiny.

 

[Oddwayne]

Are the pads on the inside the same thickness? For 5xxxx miles, that outside pad has a lot of material left. I’m wondering if the sliders aren’t working and the inside pad is worn a lot more than the outside ones.

 

[the_civic]

I had the same issue a while back... loud squealing sound coming from the driver’s side wheel when turning left... begin to suspect (worry really) that it could potentially be a bad wheel bearing. After some inspection, there was no play in the bearing so I took a better look at the brakes... I noticed some slight grooves on both the inside and outside (more so on the outside) of the rotor, but just like in your case, I still had plenty of meat left on the pads...

I took off the caliper and rotor to further inspect but didn’t find anything... thinking maybe some kind of debris got trapped between the pad and rotor at some point and caused the scoring?... still not totally sure... but after putting everything back together, the noise completely vanished...

So that would be my suggestion to you, try taking everything apart and putting it back together... hopefully that’ll help?... either way, good luck man!

 

[jason510]

I had the same issue a while back... loud squealing sound coming from the driver’s side wheel when turning left... begin to suspect (worry really) that it could potentially be a bad wheel bearing. After some inspection, there was no play in the bearing so I took a better look at the brakes... I noticed some slight grooves on both the inside and outside (more so on the outside) of the rotor, but just like in your case, I still had plenty of meat left on the pads...

I took off the caliper and rotor to further inspect but didn’t find anything... thinking maybe some kind of debris got trapped between the pad and rotor at some point and caused the scoring?... still not totally sure... but after putting everything back together, the noise completely vanished...

So that would be my suggestion to you, try taking everything apart and putting it back together... hopefully that’ll help?... either way, good luck man!

Then, and only then should you do the quad turbo.

 

[REBELXSi]

What are the rear pads like? They could be the culprit. I know when my rears were 100% shot, the fronts looked like yours. The rear pads are so tiny.

Had all the wheels off and all the pads looked good. Rears aren't as thick as the fronts but they've got plenty of miles left. My guess is that they don't start off as thick?

Are the pads on the inside the same thickness? For 5xxxx miles, that outside pad has a lot of material left. I’m wondering if the sliders aren’t working and the inside pad is worn a lot more than the outside ones.

Yup, they all seem to be wearing uniformly.

I think I may have found the culprit. It's either one of two things. Could be the brake pad hardware I blamed earlier or the dust shield. My drivers side dust shield was bent for some odd reason but I didn't see any signs of contact so who knows.

1. Bent shield. This is actually after I pushed it away from the rotor. I must have forgotten to take a before photo.

2. Here you see how close the brake pad hardware was to the rotor. This is closer than the brake wear indicator. There's no reason for this to be this close so I pulled it back using the tab on the next photo.

3. Used the tab here and pulled it towards the inside of the wheel.

4. You can see here that the pad hard ware is closer to the inside of face of the rotor than the outside and if you look closely, you can see plenty of pad left on the inside pad.

5. Another shot of the outside pad's beefiness.

Drove around a bit and I didn't hear it but it also came and went before I screwed around with it so we'll see.