Have you ever had squeaky brakes?

Have you ever been driving down the road and have pulled up to some traffic lights and heard an awful squeal coming from the car next to you? Have your brakes ever been squeaky and you have been embarrassed to be driving your car? I am sure there are lots of us out there that have been in this situation, but the question is do you know this can happen?

There are a couple of reasons brakes can get squeaky, some that are concerning and need to be addressed immediately and others that will just make a noise. The first reason and the most dangerous, is if the brakes go metal to metal. Ok, so what does that mean? Brake pads, if the are disc brakes, grip on to the brake rotor or disc to stop the car. No brake pads have metal backing plates, so if you have left the pads get too low and there is nothing left, then its the metal backing plate gripping on to the metal rotor that causes this sound and potentially stop you from braking. This needs to be fixed immediately to avoid crashing your car. As you can see from the picture below the bottom pad is showing the metal backing plate, and if you look at the rotor in the background you will see how scored the disc is from the metal backing plate. This is what gives you the squeaking sound.

normal brake pad

metal on metal

Another reason you might have squeaky brakes is that the brake rotrs might be glazed or rusty. If they are glazed it means it is harder for the pads to grip them and thus is causes a squeaky noise. If they are rusty then it the grinding off of the rust that causes the noise. Both of these are usually ok to leave, but you should always get squeaky brakes checked by a mechanic. The top photo is of a glazed rotor, you can see how shiny it is, and the bottom photo is of a rusty rotor. This happens when cars have been left sitting for a period of time (and it doesn’t have to be a long time either) or if it has been through water.

Another reason brakes can be squeaky is the brake pads themselves. Some pads, especially lower quality ones, but sometime genuine ones, will be squeaky. It comes down to what they are made of. We routinely use a certain brand of brake pads that have an excellent reputation, however in the last month or so have been coming back squeaking. We swapped them out for a brand we didn’t like as much and they have been perfect. We believe that the original company has changed it’s brake pad composition resulting in the squeal.

So for whatever the reason your brakes are squeaky ALWAYS get them checked out. Rather they are in working condition, but squeaky, than having them fail on you when you need them the most.