Possible brake problem

Mark Cahill

Full ISDC Members 2015Member Number 555
Hi guys, bit of an issue with my brakes today driving on the motorway and i'm hoping someone here can shed some light on it.

Basically I was driving along the M1 doing about 110kph, went to overtake a car and everything was fine until I pulled back into the slow lane. As i pulled back in the steering wheel started to violently shake. I pulled into the hard shoulder at this stage and thinking it was possibly a tyre issue i got out to take a look. There was a lot of smoke coming from the front drivers wheel. There was also a strong smell which to me smelled a lot like a burning clutch, but I'm sure pads probably smell similar. I let the wheel cool down a little and then got off at the next exit and took my time getting home on the back roads. Everything seemed fine getting home bar a faint squeek from the disc like you hear when pads need replacing.

I was telling a mate about it and he thought perhaps something got caught between the caliper and disc but I'm not too sure about that. I thought myself perhaps it was a sticking caliper but there was no warning before this happened. Can anyone shed some light on what might have caused this? New pads and discs have been ordered now just to be on the safe side as I was planning on changing them soon anyway. Would it be an idea to get a set of caliper seals while i'm at it? Are Brembo calipers known for sticking?

Thanks,
Mark :thumbsup:
 
sticky calliper or one of the pistons it sounds :ponder:

if something is stuck between the pad and disk and if its enough to make it smoke and smell like that then you will see a groove or scratch on the disk. this happened before on my old civic, turned out to be 2 stone chips after i had drove over a piece of road that was being re surfaced and there were loose chippings. extremely small but they were enough to do it.

one way to check for sticky calliper is move of VERY VERY slowly in the car on level ground, only so your bearly moving and clutch it, wait for the car to stop complety. you will know by how it stops weather you came to a very slow stop or if right at the end you were stopped by a piston. came accross this myself in my mothers mondeo when driving it once, stopping and going in heavy traffic and i noticed it was stopping it self just before it would come to a stop by slowing down.

hope its nothing serious pal :thumbsup:
 
sticking caliper i'd say. any caliper can stick depending on klm covered be they 4 pot calipers or brembo
 
All sorted now again. New discs and pads fitted today. Turned out to be the pads which had seized rather than the caliper. Everything was free moving when the pads eventually came out.

What would cause the pads to seize up?
 
The pad itself was almost welded to the inside of the disc. Took ages to free it.
 
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