squealing brakes

[badgolferman]

It's home repair because I plan on fixing this at home....

My son's 2002 Ford Escort makes a squealing noise when he comes to a complete stop, regardless of how long he's been driving the vehicle.

I've had it checked out by local garages and they say the brakes are fine, but I doubt they dissasembled the brakes. Is this something caused by glazing of the pads? Is the cure to replace the pads or something else?

I can't tell if it's coming from the front or back. It's got drum brakes in the back and I don't want to mess with those.

[Stormin Mormon]

The couple time I've had squealing has been dust in the rear drums. Might have to as least pull of the wheels, beat the drums loose. Clean the dust out with compressed air, brake cleaner, tooth brush, and dry with more air.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Not the model year, how many miles on the car? First is the noise coming from front or back? Then jack up the wheel, remove tire and take a look. You can clean the front brake dust/dirt build up with spray brake cleaner. My brakes last at least 120K miles. Mostly free way driving.

[David Martel]

Golfer,

They use anti-squeal grease between the anti-squeal shim and the brake pad on many disc brakes. A missing shim, incorrectly installed shim, or a lack of grease could cause squealing. This is worth fixing. Squealing brakes usually means that the pads are worn. He won't know when his brakes are worn if the car squeals everyday. Tell him to buy a tube of grease and spend a couple of hours pulling the pads and greasing the shims.

Dave M.

[clare]

Deglaze and chamfer the edges of the pads and put some "squeal stop" on the back of the pads

[clare]

dust in the rear drums will cause squeal when damp

[micky]

Stand in one spot and have your son drive circles around you, until you figure out if it's front or back. Or vice versa.

They are a little more complcated, but people fiddled with them for decades. Just put them back the way you found them, not like me, who put them back togerher in the wrong order or left a cable on top of something it should be under. I drove for 6 months wondering why they weren't as powerful as they used to be, thought they still worked. Maybe I should have written down every step when I removed a part.

[larrymoencurly]

Every time the drum brakes of my 1993 Escort squealed, it was cured by removing the drums and hosing off the insides. For front disks there's no need to remove anything; just spray water from the inside and through the openings in the wheels.

Sometimes squealing is caused by metal vibrating against metal. With drums that can be where the sides of the shoes sit against the mounds of their backing plate, and applying tiny amounts of high temperature grease there can fix it:

For drum brakes, apply grease where the pads fit against the calipers and to the rears of the pads (or both sides of the shims that go between the pads and caliper).

[gregz]

I had my service station put new pads om my Dakota once. I got tired of some really annoying squeals. I took it back, and he said, probably had bendix pads. He changed them out, and everything was fine. Not sure why someone at the station used them. Perhaps they are vehicle dependent. Rotors on that were a problem for some reason. Went through a few.

Greg