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So as the name suggests with the colder temperature we are experiencing in Toronto my brakes have started to squeal when the the car is parked outside and then driven. I know some brush it off as normal behaviour but it annoys me. Anyways I had a friend look at the brake pads regrease everything and have a look at the condition of the brakes. Everything seems normal and the brakes have about 40,000kms on them but this squeal seems inevitable. I am out of ideas and would rather not brush it off as normal.
It's super annoying and when I had my brakes replaced over a year and a half ago just before the winter everything was fine no squeals no issues at all(even in the winter). Fast forward to today its a living nightmare for the first few stops of hard braking but much longer in stop and go traffic.
If anyone has any suggestions i'd love to hear it. I have searched around the forum and saw another member apply some kind of lubricant but after reading some more it seems that option may be a bad idea in the long run for the calipers.
Performance brakes usually do squeal - it's just their nature. The main reason why a performance brake squeals is because performance brakes use larger rotors and larger brake pads, which in-turn is more likely to create vibrations in a frequency that can be heard. Be glad it's just a minor squeal that is a natural occurrence of street-type performance brakes, which in the case of the Lexus GS 350 F-Sport's brakes they are really only marginally better than their non F-Sport sibling...and only better on the track after constant, repeatable braking conditions. If you've ever been in (or around) a legitimate honest-to goodness track race car, the brakes always squeal and usually have a very harsh metal-on-metal scraping sound. Of course the owner of the track car doesn't care about his race car's brake noise - he only cares about how well his brakes perform on the track.
The problem with street driven cars that have so-called performance brakes is - it's a brake made borderline for both street and track. Lexus offers an option for the GS 350 called the 'F-Sport' that has borderline performance brakes and they frequently will squeal. You actually asked for it, but you didn't know what to expect! The other problem is that owners of the F-Sport option want the performance brakes, however they don't like, nor do they understand why their performance brakes squeal. They don't like the dust or the fast wearing pads and rotors either!
They also don't like, nor do they understand, why the F-Sport OEM 2-piece front 'performance' brake rotors (with separate rotor & hat/hub that bolts together) makes a clicking sound that is often heard at slow speeds or when turning at slow speed. The reason the 2-piece front brake rotors makes a clicking sound at times is because the rotor is designed to mount to the separate hat/hub where it is allowed to purposely float and move slightly so when the rotor heats-up under repeated track braking conditions it can expand on the separate hat/hub. Also, when cornering under maximum handling conditions a one-piece rotor can actually distort or even break away from its hat/hub, whereas a 2-piece rotor will float and is less likely to break under extreme cornering load and is better suited for such conditions.
Most GS 350 owners want the bigger performance brakes but they don't know about, nor do they want to accept, the peculiarities and negative features. It's really rather funny. It's kind of like wanting a performance handling car, but not liking the firm ride...or wanting a performance engine, but not liking the poor fuel mileage...or wanting a black car, but not liking the high maintenance...or wanting a convertible, but not liking the added wind and road noise...or wanting a pretty girlfriend, but not liking guys salivating over her all the time.
It just sucks because my previous car an M3 never made this annoying noise. I guess i'll have to live with it. My fault for not researching more on it before purchasing it.
It just sucks because my previous car an M3 never made this annoying noise. I guess i'll have to live with it. My fault for not researching more on it before purchasing it.
Thanks for the reply bc!
Oh well you live and you learn.
I've had M3s in three generations - E30, E36 Lightweight, E36 and E46.
I was horrified to find that this was applied directly to the pad material and not the backing plate! But it seems to have worked for these Aston Martin owners. I'd have to be pretty desperate to try this, I hope I never get to that point.
I recently changed my Centric rotors to the OEM 2-piece rotors (Akebono ACT1118 pads) and I thought the squeal would go away. It came back literally 30 minutes of driving. People say it's the rotors and not pads which it's really hard to tell. I'm about to change my pads out to OEM semi-metallics and see how that goes. Also, my brake noise is every time I back out the driveway and regular driving, it's not squealing first thing in the morning and after a few stops there's no more noise like other people...it's very consistent and doesn't stop.
11-29-19, 01:48 PM
Brake Squeal
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