masitaly17

Hello - Got a good one which I am hoping someone else has experienced and can help me resolve... B/C I am stumped.

I am getting a "rubbing" or slight squeal from my rear brakes while driving. It sounds like the pads are "wearing" in multiplied by 10X.. What I have done is below.

I have done many brake jobs on a varity of cars but never a Lexus rear brake job... Is there anything special we need to do when changing rear brakes??? Adjustment, installation procedures???


1) Pads wore down (to the warning tab) so I purchased new rotors and cermaic pads.

2) Did the job last weekend. New rotors and pads. Easy job to do and seemed pretty straight forward..

3) Finished the job and started driving out of the driveway and immediatlly noticed the noise. I thought for sure the calipers were locked up.

4) Took everything back apart. Isolated the noise to only happen when the caliper/pads are installed (i.e. not an E-Brake or backplate issue).

5) My friends told me to just drive it and do some hard stops. After a week of driving the noise has gone away when driving in a straight line. However, is still present when turning or wieght is applied to rear suspension (i.e. when going over bumps).

It seems like the pads are floating to much in the caliper allowing them to rub.

The rear brakes are working. I jacked up the rear and put it in drive, pressed the brake and it did stop the wheels.

I took everything apart again Thursday to see if I could determine what was rubbing. Nothing showed signs of wear!! I swapped out the pads again with new ones, the noise is still there. Only when I turn now and when wieght is applied.

If you have experienced this or know something regarding the adjustment of these let me know please. I hate driving my car now b/c it sounds like garbage.. Sorry for the lengthy post.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

Did you reuse the oem shims? Make sure the fitting kit is nice and tight on there. Loose fittings will allow the pads to dance around. I always like to use some brake grease between the pads and shim, and the shim and piston.

It's obviously not the brake pads as you already know. Perhaps the parking brake shoe is worn out? I'd help you isolate the problem if I was in IL .

masitaly17

Gsteg - You may have it nailed... There were shims that came off the old pads but I thought they were an integrated part of the pad??

they looked like they just fell off the old ones due to wear and they didn't fit on the new pads well at all... the new pads had shims attached to the backings but they were the standerd shim which is integrated into the pad..

I am going to go up to the dealer tomorrow and see if this is a seperate part from the pad.

Nope, not the E-Brake inside the drum.

masitaly17

Okay, so I went to the dealer, confirmed the shims are required, and purchased them.

I installed them Monday and believe it or not, NO CHANGE!!!

The parts guy at the dealer said Lexus changed the design of the rear pads at some point, anyone have any thoughts on this?

If you have any other ideas feel free to share them. I am going to take it apart again today to inspect but I am honestly flat out of ideas.

Noise is only present when turning or wieght is applied to the rear suspension. Sounds like the pads are floating to much and slightly hitting the rotors... Funny part is, it doesn't go away when I apply the break! I am thinking my calipers are not functioning. But they are working!!

masitaly17

Took everything apart on both sides, no change when reassembled..

There is obvious abnormal wear on the pads already.. The only thing left is turning the brand new rotors... I will have to wait until next weekend though.

The pictures of the wear is below, if you have seen this on your lexus let me know..

sbgs400

hey, have a look at this thread:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...rotor+scraping

masitaly17

this has to be it... I will tear it apart and let you know..

Thanks a million if it is.. If not, I am going to grab an 18pack..

masitaly17

Job is complete..... Sure enough this was the problem...

Thanks for helping sbgs400... much apprcieated..


Must be the tight tolerance and the lack of it with the aftermarket rotors...

For anyone running into this, don't be shy when taking material off the plate...

sbgs400

glad it worked, i've had to do this even for brembo blanks.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

I figured it was the e-brake. I had a few GS owners complaining to me about that

V8LexGS

I did my rears this wknd, and got this exact same rubbing when the job was done.

SO GLAD I had read this thread before starting.

I tried to bend it a bit, and it "helped."

But taking it to my mechanic and giving him $20 to grind down the edge of that backing plate and touch the edge with high-temp black paint....

PRICELESS.

99GSThree

iTrader: (4)

Too bad i didn't see this before this past Friday when i did my brakes.,i woulda been prepared. Just glad i was at work doing them on the lift so i didn't have to keep lifting it on a jack several times. The L/R wheel wouldn't even turn and the R/R would turn,but made that loud scraping noise. I immediately thought it was something in the parking brake mechanism. I pulled off the rotors and you could see rub marks on the plate area and tiny metal shavings on the inner part of the rotor (not where the pad contacts). So i busted out the grinder and went to work. Noise was gone!! Man i thought Tire Rack sent me the wrong rotors for a second. And i thought i was the only one who had this problem,guess not
BTW,they were Brembo OEM replacement rotors and the Akebono ceramic pads. Gonna do the fronts soon.

V8LexGS

Interesting.

Brembo and Akebono were EXACTLY what my vehicle got.

Wonder if they need to give us a MM more space around that groove that the backing plate runs in......

Would save a lot of headaches.