AndyThomason

Hello all, thank you for reading this. I need some insight from some more knowledgeable people. I will do my best to keep this short.

Couple weeks ago my car started making this strange "honking" sound when I would reverse (say out of a parking spot or something), then it would go away. Then I noticed when I am riding on the road I would hear this random set of meshy/clanky sounds that is hard to explain but I could tell it was coming from the right rear. So I figured it was time for new brake pads and they were getting down close to being done so that's why they were making noise.

Come today I install new brake pads all around and flush fluid. Didn't have any problems (or so I thought). Only things I noticed was that the right front caliper piston seemed a little harder to push in than the others but eventually it went back on fine. Then I also noticed that the right rear inner brake pad was worn down almost flat. So this is why I thought I was having the noise issues. So when we get everything back together and stuff I slowly start backing out of the driveway to just ride around the neighborhood for a few minutes. I immediately notice that I feel a resistance of some sort and it was taking more gas pedal than usual to get the car rolling. I thought maybe if I drove it around the street it would loosen up and get better. I then noticed half way around the circle that my emergency "BRAKE" light was illuminated even though my e-brake was fully down. I figured it was stuck and that was causing the resistance. I drove it a couple more minutes trying to get it to loosen itself up maybe and then start to smell that lovely brake fade smell and as I'm approaching back to the house the right FRONT is smoking from overheating.

At this point I can barely get the car back in the driveway. I let it cool off for a moment while I try to comprehend why this is happening. I was able to pull it back into the garage and park it. Now I am confused as to why this has happened because I never had a problem before. The pads/fluid change went fine as previous times have shown but this must be a weird coincidence or something. I hear all this noise from the right rear and the pad is almost flat on the right rear, and the "BRAKE" light is stuck on but the e-brake cable is fully engaging and disengaging as far as we could tell. But the front right is the one that is seemingly siezed. Maybe if I just get a new front right caliper that will solve that problem, but what could cause the light to stay on for the e-brake? Any thoughts? Thanks.

AndyThomason

Bump

zeroptzero

If you didn't notice anything odd about the rear brake piston when you were servicing it then I'd start by adjusting the emergency brake. Remove the center console, lift up the rear wheels and turn the wheels by hand to see if you have resistance on the brake. If so loosen the brake adjuster and see if it helps, keep track of how many turns you loosened the adjuster. There should not be any resistance with the rear brakes when you turn the wheels by hand and the e-brake is totally down. There should be very light resistance with the e-brake one click up. The e-brake should be fully engaged with about 11 clicks on the e-brake handle, if it is less than that loosen the adjuster if it is much more than that then tighten the adjuster. Use a 10mm box end wrench to adjust the adjuster.

Lastly, when you did the rear brakes and you retracted the piston did you line up the cross of the rear piston such that they slide over the inside metal nub that is on the inner rear pad ?. If it wasn't lined up then the inner pad will wear differently than the outer pad as the piston will sit on the inner pad nub. Just checking.