MacGyver

My question is at the end, but here's the history...

Lately I only drive the car one or two days a week, but the last month or so I've noticed a popping coming from both sides of the rear (sometimes one side or the other, sometimes both. It started with a slight pop just as the car came to a complete stop, regardless of my rate of deceleration. This past week it has started to pop as I start moving, first a single pop, and now multiple pops until I get up to speed.

A few months back I had the rear subframe powder coated and the bolts chromed, so I checked for tightness... everything was quite snug. I've had two calipers seize in the past (not at the same time, front passenger and rear driver, with the rear driver having the entire caliper and rotor replaced by Honda), most likely due to a piss-poor caliper paint job when I first got the car, leading to rust/corrosion around the o-rings.

This past Saturday I put 450 miles on the ol' girl, which is when the popping really starting acting up. On my trip back (after 220 miles), I pulled over 10 miles after I started and felt the rotors to see if a seized caliper was again at fault. The passenger rear rotor was pretty hot, though not fingerprint-removing as rotors can get when a caliper seizes.

I was now under the assumption it was a seized caliper. My thinking was (and this may not have been one of my brightest ideas) if I can get to the highway and never touch the brakes, it will wear the pads down until there's enough clearance to prevent a lot of drag. So I managed to drive the highway at a slower-than-usual speed for the next 170+ miles never touching the brake once (which is not easy in Virginia traffic, and then I made a wrong turn funneling me right into downtown D.C., but that's a story for another thread).

Obviously as I approached home I needed to use the brakes quite a bit, but I never noticed any brake fade. When I pulled into the driveway, the rotor was warmer than it should be, but it was still touchable without yanking my finger back. Hmmm, maybe the pad isn't seized, or it's temporary...



Sooooo, my questions is this: should I be looking at another cause? I vaguely recall bad wheel bearings causing a popping noise, but I don't know under what conditions. If it is the wheel bearings, that would cause the rotor to heat up, correct? Other than jacking it up and spinning the wheel by hand, what other sign should I be looking for to determine if it's one or the other? Could a seized caliper in the past heat up the rotor enough to tear up the wheel bearings, or vice versa?

negcamber

A bad wheel bearing will cause the wheel and rotor to heat up. One way to test a wheel bearing is to jack the wheel up off the ground and try to wiggle it back and forth. If it wiggles, the bearing is bad for sure. If it doesn't, you still may have a bad bearing.

Another thing to look at is the brake caliper. Despite your technique on the highway, your caliper could still be sticking. Try greasing the slider pins with high temp grease.

MacGyver

nc,

Thanks for the tip... I was just laid off yesterday (for the 4th time in my career) so I have some free time to get some stands under there. I only did the highway thing because I didn't want to pay for towing my car back 220 miles unless absolutely necessary.

The popping noise is what makes me scratch my head... it's random, not periodic, which makes me think the caliper is sticking/unsticking, but it can pop multiple times (10+) when I'm starting off from a stoplight.