Has anyone heard of brake squeal happening on brand new brakes? I seem to get squeal on my brakes at low speed (less than 10 mph), after changing all rotors and pads. This has happened to me after the last 2 brake changes. It seems to happen while the brakes are less than 5000 km old, and then they just disappear on their own.
I could understand having brake squeal on really old brakes which are due for a change soon, getting near metal on metal rubbing. But why would there be squealing on brand new brakes?
I'd say something was wrong with the installation. You should take the car back and have them fix it. My guess is that the biggest fear these guys have is a customer of a brake job coming back into their doors. They'll do whatever they can to prevent this from happening.
You need to "seat" the brakes - aka "break them in". Also, are you applying any lubricant to the backs of the pads and the slider areas or assembling them dry? Installing squeal-stop shims or using "budjet" pads that come without the squeal-stop shims????
Another thing that helps PREVENT squeal on new pads is to just "break" the edges with a file or sandpaper - chamfer the edges just a wee bit so there is not a "hard" edge on the leading edge of the pad - including on the center slot, if it exists.
I'm not the one installing these things, I'm giving it to a shop to do for me. Once the shop was the dealership, second time it was an independent garage, but it was the same issue in both cases.
I have no idea if they used shims or lubricants. But it was the exact same problem in both cases.
It makes sense, but I would've assumed that these guys knew to this themselves. At the very least the dealership should've known about it.
Now, I'll let you know that I bought this car used (2008 Tribeca) from a Subie dealership a few years back. When I first test drove the car, it had a bad vibration in the brakes due to a warped rotor left by the original owner. The dealer said that they would change those brakes out completely before they transferred it to me, which they did, but could there be any residual issues left over in the braking system from those days? I'm a much more conscientious owner, so I tend to be aware of small problems much more than most would be. I wouldn't really call this a problem so much as an annoyance.
The "warped rotor" was most likely not warped, but pitted from corrosion - usually from sitting too much with metallic pads - and ther is virtually no way that is having an effect on your current situation. Sadly, most mechanics have NO IDEA about chamfering pads, or how to reduce or eliminate brake squeal. A bit od aqueak first couple of stops in the morning is 100% normal - particularly the first stop backing out of your driveway on a cool damp morning. I can't remember if the rotors and pads are both being replaced each time in your case. Regardless, take it REAL EASY on the brakes for the first 500 miles or so untill the brakes get properly seated, or broken in. Use them often and lightly - do NOT heat them up with hard stops in the breakin perios, or they will likely always squeal, and won't stop as well as they could.
Well, just to update everybody, it looks like my brake squeal problem has finally been solved! My dealer never figured it out, but a small little independent garage near my home figured it out. I told them about the squealing problem that I've been having ever since I bought the vehicle from the dealership several years back. I complained to the dealer about it, and they just told me it was the brake pads settling and that it'll go away after several thousand km's. These were on pads and rotors installed by the dealership itself!
Later, I had the brakes replaced by an independent garage (not the same one that discovered the solution to the problem), and the problem persisted on them too. I asked this next garage to inspect them (I wanted an independent analysis, not one from the guy who replaced it before). We were going on the assumption that we would probably need to replace the pads or something, but the whole brakes were replaced not too long ago (around the time I wrote the original question, in March).
The solution seems to be that there were some metallic backing plates for the rotors that were too close to the rotors, and they seemed to be touching the rotors. They just bent the backing plates back somewhat away from the rotors, and the issue seems to be now solved! Very simple.
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