after installing new rotors and getting new tires, 4 wheel alignment and balance --

whenever i turn the car to the left fairly sharp (not curves) i get a loud shreeking sound. does not make sound on right turns. coming from passenger tire. i have redone the rotors & cleaned them, installed new ceramic pads and had firestone do the alignment / tire installation.

order it went: rotor installation, tires & alignment, screetch. installed new pads, noise stopped for a little while and then started back up. it sounds almost like metal rubbing metal and very loud.

i'm probably just going to call firestone in the morning and see what they say, probably nothing i want to hear though.

anyone have any ideas of what this could be?

 

jn_lego, I would venture to guess you have a wheel bearing that is starting to go and you are getting some play in the front wheel. So, when you turn the car, you are loading the right front tire and it is causing it to lean, which will push the rotor into either the caliper or the support for the caliper. Should be able to lift up the right front tire and by placing your hands in the 3 and 9 o'clock positions on the tire, you can try to turn the wheels and see if there is any play. If you can feel the tire wobble slightly, then you need a new wheel bearing.

The only other thing that I could possibly say that it was is that the rim is not seated on the hub and that would cause the rotor to be loose, leading to it moving all over the place. BUt, I would think that you would feel the front end of the car wobbling as you drove it down the highway (would be a severe vibration in the front end).

 

thermo - thanks for quick reply.

i should have mentioned in the previous post.

i did jack car up and check for play in the tire, didn't have any though..
i also had a local garage lift it up, they originally told me that with the slotted/drilled rotors that i should get ceramic pads. then they thought it could be a control arm bushing and they tested for this and the bearing, but got no play either as far as im aware of. (or they just didn't say anything)

everything seemed to be fine until firestone did the alignment (also torked the lugs to tight, i broke 4 of them trying to get them off) and had to replace. could torking the lugs to tight cause an issue with something else to make it do this?

 

also i get no vibration so i think that eliminates the wheel being seated properly..

 

took it back to firestone

they had it on the lift and showed me something

on passenger side the space between rotor and caliper bracket is almost none existing, on the driver side there is about the width of a dime.

top of rotor is rubbing the caliper bracket.

im guessing rotor is thicker on passenger side, company defect?

 

There are some allowances for manufacturing. With the tight tolerances that you are talking about, it is very possible that with one item being at the min and the other at the max, you can run into a rubbing issue. Should be able to be fixed by having the tire shop pull the rotor and having them shave off say 0.050" from the outside edge of the rotor. That will not get into the stopping surface, but should give you the necessary clearance to prevent the noise you are hearing.

 

thermo - figured i'd update

i did not have the rotor shaved, i bought 2 front rotors from napa autoparts to see if they had the same issue - if infact it was a rotor issue. same issue arose.

so my thought would be - from it beign in a wreck & the axle, control arm, strut being destroyed my hub assembly, namely where the caliper bracket attaches must be bent very very slightly. so as a temporary fix i inserted two very thing washers inbetween the bracket and the hub. this gave me the necessary clearance.

question for you do you think that this will be ok to leave on there or should i just use it as a temporary fix and get a new hub assembly. i've seen some on ebay for fairly cheep for 05 models, im guessing they would work fine with an 03.