My wife's 2001 Forester developed an intermittent squeal in the left rear wheel that drives her crazy. I know that it's not the brake pad wear alert because there's plenty of pad thickness. During the same period of months she was complaining about this, I noticed that the wheel also had been making the classic rumbling sound of bearing wear. So I was hoping the squeal would go away as a result of the disassembly and reassembly needed for bearing replacement, but it's still there.
The symptoms: It happens only after the car has been driven for at least 20-30 minutes. Then it occurs only when the car is moving very slowly. Once, I tried driving around until it was producing the noise and then jacked up the car so I could rotate the wheel manually. It made the sound for only about one half the rotation, in the same angular position each time. I understand that the usual suspect for noises like this is grit in the brake pads. Somehow it didn't sound like the brake rotor vibrating. Any other ideas?