Morning all.
My brakes (I can't really tell whether it's front or back) have started to make a fairly quiet scraping noise (kind of dull - not metallic sounding) when the car is cold. It stops when they warm up or after about five miles. It's only happened regularly for a couple of days, and yesterday they felt stiff to disengage when I set off after being parked for the day.
A couple of weeks ago they made a deep squealy noise when I reversed down a slope and braked, then they scraped for a day or so, then it went away until now.
I nipped into my local tyre/brake/steering specialist place this morning and they said scraping when cold was normal, but seeing as it's only just started doing it I figured I'd book it in for a check anyway.
From this limited information, can any of you suggest what it might be - is it normal (news to me) and the brakes just haven't done it before for some unknown reason, or is it a sign of pad/shoe wear? Or could it be an indicator of something more serious?
Thanks in advance
-- Kev
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I have a 2003 Golf and at this time of year with the road salt on the road, my brakes do as you have discribed, if the car is not braked heavily the salt rusts the discs and thus the noises you discribe. To get rid of them, on a quiet lorry park, I do a couple of emergencey stops to clean the discs.
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I think you'll find the rears are full of crud which will brush/blow off. Use a bottle brush/old toothbrush for the crevices. You might need an impact driver to get the screw off that holds the drum on and its worth reading Haynes carefully to learn how to release the shoes through a hole in the brake back plate rather than try to prise the drum off. Sorry if you know this already. Semi-met linings tend to rust a bit in damp weather and this gets scraped off wihtin a few brake applications. Also I've found that what dosn't sound like metallic scraping can turn out to actually be metallic scraping...
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I agree with Richard H. Probably the rear shoes causing the noise. While you've got the drums off, chamfer the front and rear edges of the brake linings on the shoes with a file (avoid breathing in any dust though).
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My corsa does the same...starts off scrapey but gets quieter.
chap at Vauxhall garage said is normal on vauxhall cars, something is tougher than normal aparently.
still having mine checked out tho'.
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sorry what mk of astra do you have ?? mk3 or astra "G"
has your astra got discs or drums on the rear??
drums:vauxhall to date have no fix for noisy rear brakes on astra g only
discs:vauxhall have had lots of probs with noise on early astra "G" rear discs some involve changing pads or pads and discs if discs are blue or worn or changing handbrake cable and or calipers/pads/discs
most new (2000/1)on astras have been fixed on the ass track
fbillytom@ntlworld.com
ex vaux tech
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Cheers for that but it's an Astra F (facelifted), with (I'm almost certain) front discs and rear drums.
-- Kev
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Have you tried any of the above suggestions yet? If so, have things improved?
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All I've really had chance to do so far was the emergency stop treatment. I slammed on and locked the wheels once, then stopped hard without locking, and the problem improved substantially. When the weather picks up I'll have a look at the pads etc and maybe try the chamfering thing if they're not worn. There's still a little noise, but nothing like as much. I reckon the pads probably are worn to be honest as I'm not convinced the van had an easy or particularly well-cared-for life before my acquisition of it.
I didn't bother getting the brakes checked out in the end as I didn't fancy paying for an hours worth of brakes stripdown only to be told 'they were just scummy.'
Cheers for the help.
-- Kev
p.s. Reminds me of an interesting story. My fiancée once took her Citroen AX to a main dealer locally for an MOT, which it failed due to brakes. They took it apart and after about an hour phoned her and said 'we're not sure if it's the pads or the discs so we're going to change both'. She said 'No, put it back together and I'll take it elsewhere' so they did, we took it to our local National Tyres (50 yards up the road), and after some hassle getting the pads off and replaced we were away.
It was REALLY obvious as soon as they took the wheel off that it was only the pads - we reckon the citroen bods just couldn't get them off so figured it would be easier (and more cost eddective - to them) to change both.
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Oh and every time I said 'pads' there in relation to my van, I meant 'shoes' :¬D
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One last thing - pattern drums are about £25/pair for Mk2 Cavalier, probably same for Astra, hardly worth putting old ones back on. A set of springs etc is good value for time saved if you're changing the shoes - about £4 from Partco.
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