Hi,

my car failed it's MOT on a brake imbalance at an independent test centre, I took it to a garage who cleaned the brakes which got it through it's MOT. However the brakes started squealing unbearably a couple of days later. I took it back, they cleaned them again and the squealing has returned almost immediately. All I could think of is they haven't greased the back of the pads but it looks like there is copper grease on the inside of the wheel. Has anyone got any ideas? (as I think they'll probably say I need new pads or something if I go back). Should an 09 Fiesta have shims behind the pads?

PS The squealing is only when braking below 20-30mph and seems to get worse the slower the car is moving.

Thanks

The pads are probably worn unevenly due to bad alignment.

They should bed in after a bit more use now they're aligned properly.

what you need to think of, is what causes brakes to squeal...one reason is movement within the caliper set up...a bit like when rubbing your finger over the lip of the wine glass...

bearing in mind i have no idea why your brakes were imbalanced or what was done to fix it but as an example..

if your pads had a build up of corrosion where the metal edges of the pad snugly fits into the caliper body..that corrosion causes the pad to stick and prevent the essential movement for the pad to be pressed evenly and hard to the disc..to fix it, the pads were removed and corrosion build up cleaned off to allow even pressure both sides of the disc on each caliper.

end result could now be the opposite of what you had..now when you brake there is a very small movement where the pad fits snugly to caliper body...causing a high pitch squeal...

with that in mind...

that movement could be the pad into caliper at any point there is metal to metal contact, or any retaining pins where they contact any metal, or spring clips where they contact any metal...be it spring clip to pad or spring clip to caliper body...hopefully you see what im trying to say.

so copper grease should be used not only on rear of the pads, but anywhere there is metal to metal contact.

if this doesnt cure it then sometimes the only answer is to replace the pads and/or the fitting kit.

or

if brakes were uneven due to a problem with the sliding mechanism of caliper, then that could also be where excess movement is, now they've been cleaned up,..in which case better off using type of grease you find in cv joints to lubricate the sliding pins rather than copper grease,

Ok thanks a lot guys