Zeus993

Just starting to hear some brake noise from the front end on heavy braking. This is new and I may need new pads etc... What's the best way to check? Take the wheels off like Edgy does? Anything easier? TIA...

Edgy01

Taking the wheels off is the BEST way but from your avatar I see you have some of the easier wheels to check pads out through the spokes. Take a flashlight and look to see roughly how much pad material is on the backing plates. Be sure to check all 4. Surprisingly, sometimes the wear is higher than you would expect on the rears.

Zeus993

Any pic or diagram to review that shows the 'backing plates' etc... Thanks Edgy.

cuttinsod

backing plate is the part on the bottom that is larger than the pads...

Zeus993

Tx

Spokane5150

Sometimes the inner pad wears quicker than the outer pad so it's best to take off the wheel to do the inspection.

mdrums

What kind of noise are you hearing? How many miles on you pads now? Any track days?

Zeus993

I just noticed it last night - came into the parking garage at the office and hit the brakes fairly hard and heard a whirring sound from the right front. Most likely original pads - 35k miles on the car and no track days.

Macster

Doesn't sound like the noise is due to pad backing material contacting the rotors.

The warning lights should come on long before that happens. I drove my Boxster with the brake warning light coming on once in a while to the point it was on all the time until I got tired of the light being on and when I removed the pads the material was worn down to about half the thickness at which point the warning light comes on.

In your car's case I suspect what happened is a piece of gravel or something (I've had both a piece of gravel and a twig) got picked up by a tire (probably a front tire) and dropped down on the brake and got caught between the backing plate and the rotor.

In my car's case, the first time when a twig -- I was driving on a dead end road after an ice storm and the road was littered with twigs -- got caught as I was making a sharp u-turn at the end of the dead end road I was able to drive the car in reverse and turn the wheels sharply lock to lock and the twig came loose.

In the case of the piece of gravel -- picked up when I pulled into the parking lot here at the office -- I had to remove the right front wheel and pry the backing plate out enough to let the piece of gravel fall free. About the size of a pea and irregularly shaped.

Sincerely,

Macster.

mdrums

Normal...pads don't fully kick back and in tight places you can hear the scrubbing sound.....or that sound was the ABS pump cycling.

Zeus993

Wow. Thanks so much for this. It's an area of the car I am not super familiar with but what you say makes sense. There are no warning lights on or anything and I seem to remember running over a stick my accident within the last week. I'll check this out over the weekend.

Fin Fever

this plus a dental mirror works great for inspecting the medial (inner) pads
saves taking the wheel off

Zeus993

Groovy. I used to use fiberoptics extensively. This looks great. I may track down and indepedent guy with a hoist on the weekend and pop the wheels off.

Zeus993

The sound is GONE! The piece of what ever it was must have worked itself out. Thanks for all the data on this. And I did learn that in actual fact my car will alert me as to when to change the brake pads, correct? Something I did not know... Tx.

MagnusB

Yes, a very "low tech" but KISS solution.
A cable is inserted in you brake pad. Once the pad wears down and starts chipping away at the cable end the resistance changes and you will get an indication on your dash.