Aaarg. New front brake pads that are squeaking!

[r2t]

2001 GM GS.

Should have known that gravy 15min front disc brake change would come back to bite me.

Changed the brakes but not the rotors as they were smooth with a very little lip on the outter edge.

Now when I start braking, I get a squeak that, for the most part, doesn't let up until stopped. I know they make stuffs to combat the annoying sound but have never needed it on my prior vehicles.

I figured I would ask gm.net what's best to apply post brake change?

[SVT98t]

Make sure those metal clips aren't rubbing on the rotor. And umm... I don't know.

-ryan s.

[gadget73]

Put a small dab of brake grease on the back pads where they contact the caliper. Also, make sure the caliper slides are clean and well lubed. They should move easily. You may need to pull them out, clean them up, and re-install with some disc brake grease. If the booties for the caliper slides are gone, then you ought to replace the slides.

[zoomie]

also may need to sand the pad surface a little bit

[Ghorneck]

How did you prepare the rotor before the change? How did you bed in the new brakes? Two most important questions to answer first.

[Brown_Muscle]

Make sure the pad shims are removed, clean, and fresh brake grease applied on. Are these pads aftermarket?

commonly you would have the rotor cut if it had not been cut before, and was thick enough. the breaking in process...i forget actually, I'm not even sure it necessary with modern day pads. There certainly is no breaking in procedure at Lexus. (it may go something like bring the car up to 30MPH and then brake hard, repeat X amount of times. but dont take my word on it.)

[85crownHPP]

What kind of pads did you use? cheap ones are usually noisier.

[Brown_Muscle]

yeah, i recommend OEM pads and shims. for anything. manufacturers don't want their cars squeaking and those pads were tested to the manufacturers specs, so braking performance will perform be as designed. a high quality rotor is also a good thing.

[sly]

I got lucky... Autozone rotors and duralast (red - regular) semi-metallica pads and the box still stops on a dime.
I got unlucky... Oreilly rotors and semi-metallic pads on the 93 vic and you really have to stand on the brake pedal to lock it up now.

*shrugs*
*rolls dice again*

[Ghorneck]

The better the pad, ie; Hawk HPS, the more critical the bed-in process is. Rotor has to have the proper amount of pad material transferred onto it, other wise it will make noises and not work @ 100%. The work around is to slather the back of the pads with any number of materials, as is commonplace since very few places have any real idea about brakes. At the very least, take the rotors off and wash them in the sink first with dish soap. Then sand them with an orbital sander, 100 grit till they are all dulled and scratched. Replace the pads. Or, have the rotors re-surfaced free at O'Reilly's. Follow bed-in procedure like the one on TireRack.com - http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/tech/....jsp?techid=85

It really does make a difference in stopping power and noise abatement.

[86VickyLX]

Squeaking can be caused by any of the above, especially if the pads you got were made out of some other kind of friction material.

Rotors, no matter how 'smooth' they look, have a wear pattern, as do pads. New pads call for new rotor surfaces, which can either be obtained by cutting the rotor (if possible) or new rotors. I personally would recommend new rotors, as they would last longer, and dissipate heat better than rotors cut once, on the basis that less metal makes it harder to dissipate heat, and can cause rotor warping.

Phil, the break in period would be something more like this, Accelerate to 50 mph, lightly apply the brakes and slow down to 30 mph. Do this at least 3 times (Obviously you'd need a clear stretch of road to achieve this, or a low lane on a highway). Hard braking for pad and rotor break-in will cause pads and rotors not to meet up properly can can cause noise, poor stopping, and shorter brake life.

[r2t]

Wow. Thx guys.

Yeah the "plan" was to replace the rears as this is where I "thought" I heard the squeaking coming from. So I bought new pads and rotors for the rear. Checked the rears and there was plenty of pad left, so I checked the fronts and they were down pretty low, which makes sense cuz the fronts wear faster than the rear. So I returned the rear p&r's and bought Advance Wearever Gold Ceramics for the front but they didn't have the rotors so I just replaced the pads which I don't usually do. The next closest shop was like 30miles away...

I don't believe there are shims or clips rubbing the rotors. I'll break it down though to be sure. I heard there is grease apply on the back of the pads. My bro has a spray can of "disc brake quiet" he offered but I have never used it before.

Thx for the input fella's.

[Piece-it pete]

I've just cleaned everything, and used the sticky blue brake anti-squeek, my whole life till my last change. Never had a problem.

On Faded Glory I did use the wagner? neoprene self stick pads, they appear to work too.

Pete

[91waggin]

I like the red disc brake quiet paste in the bottle. Follow the directions exactly. I usually only use this stuff when I'm doing a brake job if just slathering some wheel bearing grease on the back of the pads doesn't work the first time around. Usually it does. Higher quality pads (especially the NAPA premium stuff or Raybestos professional grade) have good shims on the back of the pads that seem like they actually have grease in between the two layers of the shims. I put those on dry and they work great.