Astraelraen

Brake noise on my Targa 4S seems to have increased exponentially over the last 6 months to the point of major annoyance. Yes I read all the brake squeal threads, stopping hard is really fun but the squeal comes right back.

The sound appears to be coming from behind me so I pulled both rear wheels and the brake pads are pretty thick, car has 38,XXX miles appear to be original brakes and I have no service records indicating a brake pad/rotor change.

I took the pin out of one side caliper to see if I could remove the pads and check them. They still have the original antisqueal shim stuck to the back of them. I did not want to mess with trying to pry it off so I just put everything back together without accomplishing anything.
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Any ideas or am I just going to have the bite the bullet and disassemble each side/pry the shim off and start fresh (or pay someone to do it)

lowbee

Find an empty parking lot, do a few hard stops from 12 miles an hour in reverse. Works for me.

mhm993

Find an empty street. Thirty to 5mph a few times. Repeat at 40 to 5 a couple times—repeat at 50 if the street allows. Don’t worry if you smell brakes. Then, without using the brakes, drive for 5 minutes.

groovzilla

**I had brake noise-Squeeling on my old 996C4S - Issue was due to the non-OEM Sensors installed by previous owner.
Make sure your brake sensors are OEM
Hope this helps

rtl5009

Go to ceramic pads. No squeal no dust.

rileyracing1

Disassemble inspect service and clean ...German cars are picky about having pads and rotor brands that are designed to work together some brands non OEM don;t play well together ....This drove me up the wall on my Mercedes and when I went back to OEM type rotors and pads everything was perfect again ..... ceramic pads with non proven rotors are a major culprit of this ....

wjk_glynn

You didn't explicitly say so, but I'm assuming it's a squealing sound. Noise direction from inside the car can be a funny thing, it might be worth looking at the fronts as well.

You mentioned pulling the pads to inspect them, so I'm guessing you're already familiar with this. But the only suggestion I have is to re-lube the metal-to-metal contact points where the pad touches the caliper. You can see that at the 5m18s point in the following tutorial:


I also lube where the retaining spring touches the tops of the pads' metal backing plate.

Karl.

Petza914

You need to clean off the pad bedding material from the rotor and scuff the surface of the pads, then do a rebedding procedure. What's has happened is the microscopic layer of pad material that embeds into the surface of the rotor has built up unevenly and when you stop, the rotation of that slightly uneven rotor surface between the pad faces is creating a harmonic resonance, which is the noise you hear.

To clean the rotor, put a Roloc pad in your drill and use a can of the red brake cleaner (not the green). Keep the pad flat against the rotor surface and work all the way around it on both sides for a few minutes.

On the pads themselves, wear a dust mask and scuff the pad surface with some faulty aggressive sand paper, like 60, 80, or 100 grit, then clean the pads with the brake cleaner and a rag.

The OEM anti-squeal pads, if they're the ones with the metal prongs attached to the rubber pad are quite effective. As long as the prongs hold the pads securely in the caliper pistons and the rubber pad isn't worn, cut, or torn where the circumference of the caliper piston contacts it, you can leave those attached.

Once reassembled, follow a bedding procedure, which is essentially progressively harder braking without coming to a complete stop and then a cool down period with no braking.

Astraelraen

Holy crap, you guys are right. I read all the prior threads and thought, press the brakes hard meant a couple panic stops, that didn't work.

I did many stops this morning in a row and I got the nice burning smell this morning on the way into the office and no more squealing. Call it first performance car lack of knowledge, ha!

voiceprint1

I changed to a ceramic pad, and now have a lot of high pitched screechy noises, that of course are intermittent and are usually when cold, just FYI, mechanic said pads and shims were fine?