'brake' noise

[mkc1]

Hi,

I'd had an unpleasant scraping kind of sound from the driver's-side rear wheel for a while. When I tried to remove the rotor, it seemed that the e-brake shoes were lifting off the hub and catching the rotor preventing it from coming off easily. I deduced that the clips holding them down were probably knackered, so I replaced them and the other e-brake components within the rotor. Still noisey.

I jacked up the corner and spun the wheel and could hear quite loud scraping at one spot in the rotation. I started taking the wheel off and after I got around 3 of the bolts loose, happened to spin the wheel and noticed the noise was gone. I put the wheel back on, being careful of the torque values for the bolts. Jacked it up again and spun it and it was quiet. Went for a drive and still some scraping, though not as much. Auugggh!

I was pretty sure it wasn't the back, even though it sounded like it, so I checked the front and the dust shield was scraping against the rotor there. I bent it back out and am now driving along in blissful silence! Not sure if the issue with the back was that the wheel was too tight or just unevenly torqued, but being careful with the torque seems to have paid off. So, there are a couple of morals to the story if you have noise that seems like it's coming from the brakes:

1. Check the lug bolts and make sure they're torqued correctly and evenly.
2. The noise may not be coming from the wheel you think it is, so check others.

Hope this helps someone!