squarehat

Alright guys, my '96 ES300 sounds like a subway car right now

A couple of weeks ago, I had my pass. side front caliper, pad, and rotor changed (the caliper was damaged from a pothole). They replaced the driver's side, too (pad/rotor only), to make things match. Last week, I had the rears (pads/rotors) replaced, since they were worn.

Anyhow, I had squealing on all 4 brakes when they were brand new, which I took for normal. The rears seem to be fine, but the fronts squeal from about 10 to 0 MPH when stopping, and now I'm getting a constant squeal out of the front driver side while driving. Last night when driving back from a friend's place on a quiet road (at about 40MPH) with the windows open, the squeal was very noticeable.

Could this be a shim issue? I tried the old brake hard while in reverse trick the other night, which seemed to help the rears. But that noise while driving from the front left is brand new. What else could it be? I hope I don't have a bent front driver's caliper now. (I am running 215/50-R17 now vs. the stock 205/65R-15, but I have relatives that drive cars with even lower profile tires and much less forgiving suspensions, and never have their brakes knocked out of whack every time they hit a bump on the freeway.

Toysrme

1) The squealing is problably due to not lubricating between the piston. two shims and the brake pad.
Take it back to them, or DIY and spend 45min to an hour + $3 for brake lub.

2)
a) The old drive fast in revers and brake hard is a laod of car to all of us. All you've done is put that much more wear TOO EARLY in the lfie of your pads/rotors. This is how you adjust drum brakes. Not disks.

2)
b) Quite possibly you've warped the rotors allready. You should go easy easy on rotors the first 1,000 miles and easy on pads their first 100. Do a search and look up how to break in pads and especially rotors. Fast stopping in the first 100 miles on a pad swap is problably the #1 cause of warped rotors.
The #2 cause of warped rotors is stopping to fast, and not breaking them in in in that first 1,000 miles.

Brandon@TR

I recommend you determine the pad manufacturer you have on the vehicle and follow their instructions on how to properly bed the pad. Most manufacturers will recommend several medium stops (40-50 mph) followed by several hard stops. It sounds like this may be a problem with the bedding of the pad. If they are bedded properly then the shim/lube recommendation above might be a solution. Calipers and rotors can also cause noise. This is hard to diagnose without being there but hopefully this helps.

Brakes 101

squarehat

Thanks for the link, Brandon. My car's actually at the shop right now, there's a 6,000 mile warranty on them, so they're going to take a look at them, see if there's any warpage, whether anything needs grease, etc. I'll keep you guys posted.

squarehat

I picked up my car from the shop, they cleaned and greased the brakes. The noise while driving is almost gone, it popped up once for a short bit (I drove the car about 60 miles after picking it up). Noise when stopping is now only from 5-0, instead of from 10-0 MPH, and only happens about 25% of the time, rather than all of the time. I don't know if it takes time for the grease to work it's way in to the pistons, shims, etc. I'm taking it to the dealer for my 90K service in the next couple of weeks, so I may have them check it out. I once remember reading that Lexus shims can be tempermental, but I figure this shop sees enough V6 Camrys/Solaras, Avalons, and even ES's to be familiar with the brake setup. But I'm not sure if the Lexus dealer would "relentlessly pursue perfection"--aka non-squealing brakes a little further than a local tire/brake chain.