Within the past two/three days I have noticed a slight squeak occurring when cruising at lower speeds (25-40 mph) coming from the front passenger side wheel assembly. The sound is much more pronounced as the car warms up, and can really be heard most when turning the wheels to the right. When I apply the brakes, the sound goes away completely until I release them again. It very well may be making the noise at highway speeds, but I cannot hear it if it is.

My first thought was wheel bearings, but I would like to know of others opinions/experiences. I plan to make an appointment at the dealer asap to get this looked at.

 

in my opinion it sounds as if you have something wrong with the brakes...

 

If it is the bearing then it will progressively get worse, and louder
typically they take a while to fail



I would look in the wheel well and make sure that your plastics are all in place first

 

If your wheel bearings are going bad, your wheel will have play in it if you jack it up and start wiggling it correct? If so you should jack your car up and give the wheel a few tugs back and forth and see if it moves.

I'm with Camshaft, it kinda sounds like your brakes are making the noise if you can't hear anything when applying the brakes...

 

I plan to investigate this weekend as well as fully clean and insect the wheel well and components. This noise is a short squeak, once per rotation, that only starts after the car is warmed up. It is much louder when turning the wheel, but does not really give me the impression that it is grinding (which leads me to lean towards the brakes being the culprit as well).

I will update if find out when the problem is, was really wondering if anyone else has run into any problems like this. Thanks for the input.

 

Well, after further investigation, it seems that my front pads (I believe both sides) are contacting the rotor while the brakes are not being applied causing the noise. I just have a hard time believing both calipers are sticking??? This noise started about ~2000 miles after replacing my front pads with Axxis ULTs.

 

Update:
About 2k mi after replacing front pads, squeal appeared. Seems that it is coming from pads dragging.
I have disassembled the front calipers, cleaned and re-lubed slides and pins, cleaned everything, yet still get the squeal. It gets louder as the brake parts warm up, when I turn left or right, and goes away when I apply the brakes. When I jack up the car and try and spin the front wheels, they get a full rotation and some, so it is not like the pads are dragging terribly, but I can hear the drag some which I understand is normal for floating calipers.
Any ideas suggestions? I have done just about everything minus rebuilding/replacing the caliper itself and still have the issue. It is getting pretty annoying!!

 

Would warped calipers cause this issue? Maybe they need to be replaced...

 

Calipers would not warp. I would blame it on the pads since they were replaced...

I would try putting brake grease on the back side of the pads to see if that helps.

 

I have used grease as well as that red, brake quiet tacky stuff. Neither made a difference...

 

Well, sounds like the pads...if you replace pads and that is not the case, then warranty should cover anything else....also try turning the rotors/or replacing.

 

replacing the pads is next on my list of possible fixes. Rotors have been cut which solved the issue for about 20 mins of driving.

Seems that when I drive spirited, last second, hard braking, the sound tends to fade for a few minutes. But it has not gone away totally.

 

what type of pads are you using? I find the higher end brake pads have a bit more meat on them and have had the same thing happen on my eclipse gst. I would really look at your brake pads again. how many miles do you have on your car? Axle bearings tend to go around 75k-100k if even then. calipers dont really fail that often. good luck!!

 

Axxis ULTs, how much "meat" should not matter as that is what the piston is there for.
Car is at 34.5k mi. It is not any bearing going as I've checked for this.
I honestly think something on the caliper is loose. I have also thought that maybe the salt water over the winter has cause the caliper to accumulate some corrosion, but not totally seize it. Most likely I am going to bare the noise for another month, invest in some new pads and if that doesn't work, I will rebuild/replace my front calipers.

 

I think its just your pads. I have a buddy with an sti and every time he slightly taps on the breaks they start to squeal. If he hits them hard noise goes away. gl.