brakes dragging

[sen2two]

I noticed my front wheels were a little shaky when checking out my car yesterday. So I removed the wheel to see if there was a suspension piece loose, or if it was the wheel bearings. One thing I noticed (has nothing to do with the shaky wheels of course) was that the brake pads are always touching the rotors. Just dragging along.

how much is OK, i know there's supposed to be some brake drag. Is there a way to eliminate this?

[Max777]

Well, that's kinda how disc brakes work, you will always have a little bit of dragging, but nothing that won't allow a wheel to freely spin.

I know that the 4 pot FC calipers need to have the springs that put pressure on the pads and I think these help the pads "retract" a bit when you let off the brake pedal.

[Rotary Related]

The shaky wheels is either the wheel bearings or tie rods. To check these do the following:

Leave the lug nuts tight. Jack the car up. Place on hand on the 9 and one on the 3 oclock positions on the whell. Try to wiggle it back and forth. If it moves then you have a bad inner or outer tie rod. You might need one person to look at the tie rods and one to shake the wheel to determine if it's the inner or outer. Any play is a bad thing. Replace the parts asap.

If it shakes side to side try up and down next to make sure of the diagnosis. With one hand at 12 and one at the 6 oclock position rock the wheel up and down. If there's play this direction the wheel bearing is too loose or bad. Depending on if you can tighten it more or not.

Also note side to side play can be a wheel bearing as well, but only if up and down play is there as well. This is super easy to do with an extra person helping. Doing it by yourself makes it hard to see whats bad on the back side of the wheel.

If you change the inner or outer rod then just change both because you'll fix one and the other will probably go bad soon anyways. If money's tight then do what you need to do. I highly recommend replaceing both inner and outer rods on both sides if they are OEM anyways. You can get them on Ebay in sets if money is tight. OEM ones are best of course.


Also forgot to mention if the steering wheel turns back and forth while the tire rolls along the ground then the tire is bad not the suspension. This is not a 100% promise but is the case most times.

Depending on the shaking the strut could be extremely bad as well. Always remember the car can exert a lot more force on the suspension components than you can by hand so everything is magnified.