Fed

For sometime now, I have had a sound coming from my drivers side wheel when braking over bumps. It sounds like a spring compressing and decompressing, and to me it seems like it's only coming from the drivers' side wheel. I took the wheel off, gave it an inspection, and everything looks fine, however, I did spin the rotor with the wheel off, and it looks like the rotor is rubbing aginst the brake pad. Could it be that my driver's side rotor is warped and that that is what is causing the sound? This sound has become much more louder lately, and occurs while braking on perfectly flat surfaces now too. Also, would a warped rotor be covered under warranty? I only have 12500 miles on the car so far. (Somebody please tell me I'm wrong and it will be covered , if the rotor is the problem.) Or could it possibly be something else? There is some vibration on the pedal upon braking, but not too much.

marcucci

Can you be more descriptive on the noise?

If the rotors are warped, it manifests itself as a pedal pulsation, not usually a noise. Though an oscillating noise with a frequency of the wheel rotation MIGHT occur.

If you can describe the noise a little better...

speeeding

You might get a dial indicator and measure the runout on the rotor.

Fed

It's like a spring compressing sound, kind of like a boing-boing-boing type of sound. Dunno if that describes it any better.

joe_s2k

I have somewhat of a similar situation w/ a different sound coming from my drivers side rear wheel. It only happens when I'm backing out of my driveway onto the street and I get this clunking sound similar to brake pads that are stuck to the rotor after a washing.

Is your sound coming from the rear wheel?

marcucci

No, "boing boing" doesn't help. Does it sound like metal on metal, metal on rubber... what (other than a spring boinging) does it sound like? Deep (low tone), tinny, squeaky...?

If you have no pedal vibration upon braking it's not the rotors being warped.

The clunking is common, it's just the pads moving in the calipers. They will do it when you change direction the first time while braking (backing up, then going forward, etc.).

Fed

Definately not clunking. It's like a squeaky metel on metal sound fron a spring decompresing and compressing again. That's the best way to describe it. Guess I'll have to have them take a look at it.

smyroad

It sounds strange. Have you checked to make sure the spring spacers were removed? Do you use a torque wrench to check the lug nuts when you put the wheels on? The rotors in my integra used to warp all the time until I discovered that there is a torque spec for the lug nuts. I forget what the spec is for the S right now.

Fed

Spring spacers were removed, lug nuts were not over torqued since the wheel was never removed from the car.

Audball

Fed is describing it about as dead-on as you can -- I have the exact same phenomenon, and his description is exactly what I would have come up with. I don't think it has anything to do with the rotor - the frequency is higher than what you'd get from it rotating (and the sound reverberates/continues after you're stopped). I personally wonder if it's somehow related to the ABS system, as the frequency seem to be on par with that, but I never get pedal feedback when it happens.

Imagine taking the ABS feedback/vibrations, but instead of having them come up through the pedal, they go somewhere else -- for example stainless steel brake lines. (That's about the only somewhat metallic flexible piece I can imagine being down there aside from the springs...). The sound also naturally trails off -- it's not an abrupt on, pulse, then abrupt off like ABS. It's abrupt on, pulse, decay. Other than the sound weirding me out temporarily when it happens, I haven't experienced any problems with the brakes.

Hope you find out what it is, Fed. I'm curious to know myself! (For me, it's just another idiosyncracy of the car that I live with, kinda like the vibrating clutch disc rattle and shifter ringing...)

Cheers,
Dave