2001 Chevy Silverado Front Braking noise.

Hi there,

Thank y for the donation,

Re inspect your pads, look for a small metal tab to one side of the pad, if fitted this is a wear indicator, check that it is not just starting to touch the rotor, these are an audible warning that the pads are due for replacement, on first glance the pads can look in good condition, just check this first.

mark (mhpautos)

[quote:f36b243a1c="mhpautos"]Hi there,

Thank y for the donation,

Re inspect your pads, look for a small metal tab to one side of the pad, if fitted this is a wear indicator, check that it is not just starting to touch the rotor, these are an audible warning that the pads are due for replacement, on first glance the pads can look in good condition, just check this first.

mark (mhpautos)[/quote:f36b243a1c]

I did inspect the prake pad tabs when I had them off and they are all far from any contact with the rotor faces, but I think this was a logical suggestion on your part. What else could this problem be? Any other suggestions. The problem seemed to start gradually and has now gotten worse. The harder you apply the brake pedal the louder it gets. As I said orginally, I only hear it when braking at slow speeds.

I would be wondering if the brakes are glazed up, this would make a squeal type nose at low speed and tend to fade as brake temp increases, are they a cheap pad? as these will often squeal due to a high resin content, it will be a pad problem as if it was anything else i feel it would be there all the time.

Mark (mhpautos)

[quote:2a24db620f="mhpautos"]I would be wondering if the brakes are glazed up, this would make a squeal type nose at low speed and tend to fade as brake temp increases, are they a cheap pad? as these will often squeal due to a high resin content, it will be a pad problem as if it was anything else i feel it would be there all the time.

Mark (mhpautos)[/quote:2a24db620f]

The pads are original (Chevy) since the truck only has 48k miles (and most of those light duty). I inspected them carefully for signs of glazed up surfaces and did not see any. The pads clearly show dark and light srreaks with a silver metal particle pattern and do not look like any glazed pads I have ever seen. Rotors are flat and smooth and almost like new other than discoloration on the surfaces. I have wondered if I just replace the pads with originaly GM pads or a good quality after market pad whether the scraping noise will be gone. What do you think about that? Maybe that is all that is left to consider. I still drive it some, becuase I could not see anything that indicated a safety problem. The vehicle stops okay. I just hate the scraping sound and the attention it gets when I pull up to a stop sign and people are staring. A little humor there! Do you think replacing the pads is the best (or perhaps the only) approach to solving this?

Hi there,

I would consider this after closely inspecting the edge of the rotor and look for any evidence of touching anything, check that the backing plate is well clear and there is no movement in the wheel bearing allowing any disc movement, i would also consider having the rotors skimmed with any new pads, they should only need to take off a few thou.... pads may be your salvation as i cant see it being anything else at this point.

mark (mhpautos)