My brakes have been starting to squeel a bit lately. I'm pretty sure it is the front brakes. Even if my foot is completely off the brake I will hear the squeeling sound as my car creeps forward, then gets a bit louder when I press the brakes, and finally stops when my car comes to a stop. I called an independent shop who wants to take a look at it. They said if they need to change the pads, they will also change out the rotors, and it will cost about 400$ for the front brakes only. I think it may come to that, and am wondering if there is a cheaper place to get that done in the Chicagoland area.

 

i'm not sure if me and you had the same problem but about a month ago i was very fed up with my front brakes squeeling everytime i applied any sort of pressure to the brake pedal. i was told that it happens with the cheaper brake pads and normally goes away as the brakes warm up. well i know the rotors were resurfaced before i bought the car and the guys at the shop told me that the previous shop had forgotten to rotate the rotors around and they would need to be resurfaced. i was so fed up with the squeeling that i went ahead and shelled out close to 500 for new ceramic pads and the rotor resurfacing and now i hear no more squeeling.

 

If it has gone far enough that you hear metal on metal scraping, it will be more expensive to fix. If it's just a squeal, then the pads are working as intended in that there is a wear indicator that emits an audible sound when the pads are reaching the end of usable life. Don't go too much longer! The image below shows what this wear indicator looks like. When the pad wears away it allows this piece to make contact with the rotor. The brake pads have a layer of friction material on them that is riveted/glued to a steel backing plate. The friction material is designed to wear away and do little harm to the rotor. Once you have used up all the friction materials, all that is left is the steel plate/rivets that hold the pads to the steel plate. The steel digs into the steel putting grooves into the rotor that even a shop can't turn out (turning is the process in which the rotor is resurfaced to like new condition) If this is the case you will need to replace the rotors. When the car has been sitting overnight, before you move it take a look at the rotors through the wheel. If it doesn't look smooth and if you drag a fingernail across the surface (ONLY ON A COLD ROTOR) and you can feel the grooves, it is likely too late.

Front brakes on most vehicles aren't too terribly hard for the shade tree mechanic to handle in a driveway. If you've got some friends who are mechanically inclined, toss them a case of beer and pick up the pads/rotors yourself and save a ton of money. Another plus side it you get to pick the quality of part that goes on your vehicle, not the mechanic at the garage. I used to be a manager at Advance Auto Parts before we moved and we would sell the Economy pads/rotors all day long to the mechanics. The only person that level of quality helps is the mechanic doing the work. He gets paid for the job, and gets to do the job again sooner because the economy junk wears out so quick.

Good places to find parts online for your cars is Rockauto.com (always a 5% coupon active...Google search for Rockauto Coupon) or even your local Auto Zone/Pep Boys/Napa, etc...

Rockauto shows the rotors for your car at about $70 each and a set of pads for about $50. Those are the top quality ones. Not the econ ones the mechanic would likely put on.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the info. I thought it might be the wear indicator. I will definitely check the smoothness of the rotors. I may have to buy the quality rotors and pads and have an auto shop install them for me. I live in an apartment and I don't have all the necessary tools here with me to do any kind of mechanical work. Now to find a shop that will do the work for a reasonable price.

 

Check out yelp for shop reviews. Replacing rotors+pads should be 1hr labor (~$90 here)

 

I replaced my squealing factory pads with some Centric Posi-Quiet ceramic pads from Amazon for just $38. No more squealing.

 

my factory pads squealed one time, all I did was take off the pads, clean it up, put new anti squeal grease on it and it was gone. Pads werent worn down enough yet. Front brakes are so laughably easy to do