Hiya everyone. Under heavier braking below 8mph theres a grinding noise coming from one rear wheel. My question is do the rear pads have wear indicators because when the fronts wore out there was a constant squaling noise. I haven't heard that yet. The pads have about 40,000 miles on them. They aren't the original pads.
Grinding noises from my brakes have pretty much always been about surface rust (especially after sitting in any wet weather) and go away after a small number of stops in Neutral (which forces the brakes to be used, and rubs the rust off).
I started getting squealing noises from one of the rear brakes on my 2009. It wasn't the shoes or drums, there was plenty of brake material left. It was actually the cylinder that developed a minor leak, so I ended up doing the brakes. One of the things that I noticed was that there was a buildup of brake dust circulating around inside the drum. I should have been pulling the drums off every so often (couple of years or so) and dumping out the accumulated dust as well as making sure the self adjuster wheels still turn. If you live in a high corrosion area, it probably would be beneficial to make sure the shoes aren't rusting out too. There's a slot at the bottom, but it looks like the dust doesn't find its way through. After doing the brakes, I found I got a few more MPG. I figure it was the dust rubbing on the brake drums, so there's a side benefit too.
