I am sure this is common for those that knows this. Especially bad during winter or on cold days and after rain. First few minutes of driving every time I brake it will give you this very annoying loud squeak. I have owned a 2016 IS 300, and this is the 2nd winter, I dont recall it was this bad last winter but somehow it is alot worse now.

I took this to the Lexus service and was told all cars do this (well this is my 8th car and none of the cars I owned previously (even a Toyota) had this problem. Sure maybe a tad little, but nothing as obvious as my car now.

First, how does everyone deal with this?

My service at Lexus offered to clean.tune (cant recall the details)for the brakes.rotor which should help and cost 140 bucks. I decided to wait and see if anyone has done this to be able to comment



Is this really a lexus problem?

 

pretty common. How many miles have you put in on those brake pads?

 

about 20k miles

 

Is your car an F sport? If so, F sport brake pads tend to make more noise due to being a total semi-metallic pad. You trade noise for stopping power. Otherwise, 20k miles on pads seems like they are towards the end of their usable life anyways but that depends on how you drive. Did the dealer tell you how much pad was left?

 

LOL mine squeak 24/7 whenever stop in gear D, 60k $ thousand dollars Lexus is like that lol, by the way, ive talked to an Engineer friend at work, he said tell the Mechanic to Cut the 2 edges it will stop, havn't tried mine yet probably Summer. i like the Squeak noise so people knows you are STOPPING

 

Squeaking is usually due to compound, pad movement or pad sitting unevenly. If it's the compound it usually squeaks from day 1 (aggressive pads can do this). But if it's something that has developed over a long period, then it's likely just the uneven surface due to the rotor wearing down, which is why cutting the edges can help, so the pad doesn't make contact with the uneven surfaces of the rotor.

 

2016 Lexus IS 350 AWD Non F-Sport - 31,000kms (about 19,000 mi)

Just had mine replaced under warranty. I literally could not handle the constant squeaking I was getting. My front brakes would pretty well squeal every single time I touched them. And it would also depend on how soft I hit the brakes. There was a sweet spot if I can call it that.....depending on how soft you were applying the brakes I could make those baby's squeal.

Bought my car Nov of 2015. That first winter I experienced some mild squeaking but nothing major. The winter of 2016 I was noticing the squealing/squeaking sound when applying the brakes. It would occur when the temp was below freezing. This last winter (2017) it was unbearable!! My brakes would constantly squeak. Didn't matter the temp, nothing. I made a note to my service advisor each time and was told all was good with my brakes. Got the 'well you bought a sports car and brakes squeal' spiel. LOL yeah, yeah, I know....regardless they covered the brake/rotor replacement under warranty this past month. Good luck.

 

"Squeaks" are the result of high frequency vibrations. This problem is "normal" on these cars and exacerbated by the high friction compound (possibly metallics) used in the F Sport pads. I believe overall Lexus can fine tune the brake hardware to mitigate this. The exact design/tolerance allows this car to squeal more than it should, and quicker (after a cleaning) than it should. I'll bet the next Lexus IS will get revised hardware to mitigate this. But overall, a "sports" oriented car will squeak. No way around it.

Overall, it's normal. The best way to mitigate this is power wash your brakes with high pressure water at least once a week.

I did purchase some drilled/slotted powerstop rotors (Super cheap-on sale) and I'm curious to see if those will mitigate the squealing due to material missing from the drills/slots. I'll update you guys.

 

It's not a "spiel," it's the truth. Your seasoned BMW M driver knows this all too well (I'm one of them). Even fresh off the lot (0 miles).

And.. My buddies with upgraded race pads on their BMWs--you don't even want to know how loud those squeal.

 

As I mentioned over on the other thread about this, don't hesitate to have your dealer or mechanic check out your pads and rotors. By 20k, you're probably close to needing to replace the pads. I had some really loud squealing when brakes were cold which was completely fixed by getting the rotors machined. Got it done under warranty as well. We had a couple of cold days this week, and I've had no squealing whatsoever.

Basically - it's not "normal" to have the brakes squealing at a deafening volume all the time, "performance" pads or not.

 

^Well, OP. Does it do it "all the time?" or does it do it only some of the time?

My IS fresh off the lot squealed some of the time. And it still squeals some of the time. Nothing ever changed even with a pad change.

 

Yep and if you google porsche 991-911 (Porsche's newest 911) all those guys on those forums complain about brake squeal too.

you guys want your cake and want to eat it too.

performance comes at a cost.

that cost is wear/noise/dust.

don't want any of those things? you'll get camry performance.

you want to compete with BMW. you get BMW-like things going on. that's where this market segment is with performance sedans.

 

My rotors were scored. So, maybe my squealing was abnormally loud, but it was easy to fix. And, under warranty. I won't be surprised if they start squealing again when it gets really cold (like, less than 20 degrees F) again, but it's been all but fixed. I have the F Sport pads, too, with 17k miles.

Mine didn't squeak on day 1 - only started squealing after a couple of months when it got cold, but they got worse over time.

Edit: They might have gotten scored due to build up of salt/crap on my brakes over time, combined with hard braking, I guess?

 

Some people on the 911 forums are suggesting braking hard a few times. or every once in a while. dislodges build up from the hardware and scores the rotors in just a way where the frequencies that cause the noise don't occur under friction--or occur less severely. The brakes just need drama every once in a while -- whether its power washing or braking hard (or both!)

 

Could be - I tried that a few times and didn't notice any improvement. However, maybe mine were so severely damaged that they needed to be resurfaced. I was just thinking of how salt is a pretty abrasive substance, and not sure if hard braking would be counter-productive.

My main point was, if you don't like the noise, you don't necessarily have to live with it - there are things you can do to mitigate or even eliminate it. I dislike the "bro culture" of how sporty cars are supposed to suck, and that we should just deal with it. I get that vibe a lot, but really people - this is a compact 4-door sedan with some high-friction pads thrown on it, not a 911 GT3. Yes, brake dust and squealing are inevitable at a certain point in time, I know. But if it's to the point of being obnoxious, there might be a problem, and it shouldn't just be blamed on "performance".