Troubleshooting my mother-in-laws 2002 RX300. I've been around the block 1001 times with European cars but have never wrenching anything Asian before, so my understanding is good...but there may be something highly unique to this make and model.

She complained for a noise from the right rear that was not consistent. I was able to get the facts today.

• No problem with brake stopping, compresses as expected.
• When pulling away from a stop about 1 out of 4 times it seems to drag and she gets a chatter/noise from this grab
• You an feel the grab and the right rear dips and pulls to that side.
• It's a very inconsistent issue. Doesn't seem to matter what speed you stop from, how hard or how fast you try to accelerate after the stop.
• Nothing is mushy and nothing over heats on extended drivers.

I would usually say it's simply a sticking caliper but I've never seen one make this noise or be inconsistent. It doesn't drag and the rotor and pad wear looks pretty average to the other side.

Anything to know with auto adjusting e-brake back there?
Anything go bad with the ABS accumulator up front that just affects one wheel?

Since I know most failure trends occur for any make/model I wanted to run this past the RX300 gurus to see if there is a common failure trend here.

Thanks for any constructive input!

 

From what I have seen on the forum a broken reluctor ring can cause this problem. When you start off at low speeds the anti lock system is getting a signal that shows slippage and applies the brake to that wheel and this can cause the problem.
Do a search for broken reluctor ring and see if this matches your problem.

 

try jacking up the offending wheel and run the test/checks.

e-brake is the shoe-pad sub-assembly inside the hub/drum. Not too much difference when it comes to brakes and wheels.

Salim