hot brake, coke bottle sound after brake and tire change
Hi,
A few days ago, I had a local garage check out my new-to-me 1984 300sd. They replaced all four brake rotors and put in new front and rear brake pad sets, in addition to doing some engine work.
Today, I had two new tires placed on the rear wheels. After perhaps two miles of driving, the left rear began making a sound like someone blowing over a coke bottle. It seemed to come and go at around 20 mph, and it seemed to get worse when turning left.
We went back to the tire place, where the guy who put the tires on took both rear tires off. The driver side wheel/brake was very hot. He removed the "dust protector" and sprayed around with high pressure air, which dislodged a lot of dust. He did the same on the other side. He insisted that nothing the only thing that could have happened during the tire change is that some piece of grit might have been dislodged, and complained that the garage should have cleaned out the area when putting in the new rotors and pads so that there would be no dirt.
We drove home, about 25 miles. The sound came back, mostly at low speed but also (same pitch, even) for a few seconds while we were going at 60mph. The rear driver side wheel was again *very* hot.
Although I doubt this matters, one of the rear tires had been P195/70R14 and the other had been P205/70R14; all four tires are now P205/70R14.
Can anyone help me diagnose this? I'm a complete newbie when it comes to car repair. Should I be angry at the garage? At the tire shop? At the world?
Thanks in advance for any help, and apologies if this is not the right place for this posting.
No, the emergency brake is not engaged -- I'm new, but not quite that new -- but thanks for suggesting it.
The closest match for the sound in Chilton's is something to do with the rear axle, but I'm still hoping for brakes. Might a rear axle problem cause the rotors on the drivers side rear wheel to become very very hot?
The turning left thing to me says diff, but the hot rear rotor and recent brake work to me says the shop broke that little boot thing on the caliper, making the caliper stick.
Oh, and yeah, there isn't really anything the tire shop could have done to cause this.
Last edited by marlinspike : 04-29-2007 at 09:43 AM.
Even though the shop that did the brake work probably screwed things up, I would take the car back ASAP and be there when they take it apart to inspect it. Once you or someone else starts messing with it makes it tougher to go back to the first shop and get them to take the blame. Just something to think about....
Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I'll be taking it back to the original shop on Monday morning. I'm not sure I'll be able to stick around, but I think they're reasonable folks... so far. I'll let you know what happens.
I just wanted to thank folks for their suggestions. The problem does seem to be a sticky caliper; it comes and goes, and I'll just drive it up to the shop if I can hear the sound when I drive in to work.
Linear Mode
