Now that the weather is cooling off, I have been driving with the AC off and the windows down in the morning (so I can enjoy blower whine). Unfortunately, I noticed that my car is squeeking rather badly under mild braking from 20mph and up. The previous owner told me the car had new'ish brakes but who knows how new, or if just one set was new. However, the car stops very smoothly and on a dime, so I am not sure what the issue is here.

So how do I determine if I need new pads, rotors, or adjustment? Any tips or tricks? I would rather do what I can myself and use my mechanic as a last re$ort. Thanks for the help.

 

Try cleaning the brake dust first. Use a wheel cleaner chemical, not just soap and water. Make sure you get the caliper really good.

 

What sort of pads do you have on it?

The Akebono pads are quiet.

As mentioned remove your wheels and pads then clean the calipers where the pads reside really well with brake clean. Nasty stuff so be careful.

I always use Nissan's antisieze PBC grease #99990-00939 on the back sides of the pads and anywhere that the metal portion make contact with the caliper. A sparing amount is all that's needed. It's messy stuff so clean up any extra and DON"T get it on the pad material or the rotor.

It's also possible that your rotors have pad material build-up on them. That would produce some vibration and possibly a bit of steering wheel shimmy. I've never noticed that on this car though. You can remove that with emery cloth or there are pads on an arbor that can be put in your electric drill for removing this. You don't need to have the rotors professionally turned for this.

Good luck.

 

I now have close to 50K miles on my Akebono pads on my 2005 STR.

I really agree with Staatsof!

I would stop fighting it and replace all 4 wheels with Akebono pads. No noise, no dust and great wear!
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