chinsk

The past month or so I have started to notice a groaning/grinding sound when I come to complete stops. I do not hear this sound when I am braking at highway speeds or other non-complete stop braking situations. Braking seems to be normal in terms of my ability to stop the car, no changes noticed there. If I am light on the brakes I do not hear this sound (sometimes it needs to be too light), and if I have to come to a sudden stop I hear it as well. Sometimes it does not do it, other times it does it at every stop.

I did the usual and popped off all the wheels a couple weeks ago to check pads and what not. I did not notice any marks on the rotors (checked outside facing only), pads were good (front were changed 13k miles ago). I had the car in for the lower control arm bushing replacement last week and brought this up to the mech and he said he did not notice anything when he test drove it (possibly it wasn't doing it at the time for him).

Any ideas?

This is a '97 E320 w/ ~95k miles

sbarsap

I had the same issue when I had just bought my car with 27K mile on it. The brakes were fine according to a mechanic, I balanced all my tires and the noises went away. Not sure if it was the balancing or just the re-torquing of the wheels that helped.

hadam

I got the same problem on front brakes. I put new pads and rotor about 1 year ago on my 2001 E-430.

But for last month or so I am hearing this grinding sound when ever I stop my car on stop sign and red lights.

No pulsation or any other indication that rotor were worpe.

I removed the wheels yesterday and checked and found that the brake pads surface is bad. There is enough pads on it, but for some reason look like poor quality of pads that cause some marking on rotor.

I have textar yellow box pads. I bought my parts from Online. Some time you get junk parts, watch out.

I am going to re surface my rotors and put OEM MB pads Monday.

Front brakes on W210 are very hard to get it done corretly.

chinsk

Hmm, that kind of sucks about the pad quality. I was thinking about trying the Axxis Deluxe pads based on the fact I have seen several folks recommend them. Anyone else experience this and have alternative brand recommendations?

Huachipato

I had the grinding noise on my car. The inside right front wheel pad was worn out completely. No sensor on the pad either. I'd look at both pads on each wheel just in case it's the same issue.

chinsk

Yeah I checked the pads, they all look good in terms of thickness to me. Brake sensors all seem to be in place as well.

Max95

Could be that the pads and/or rotors have been glazed, you can try to clean/sand and then rebed the brakes again.

chinsk

Here is an iteresting update. Yesterday while over at my friends house I washed off the black-dust-covered-disgrace called my wheels. I put the hose on the pads and just watched the black river run down the driveway. Anyway, long story short, when I drove home a little while later the brakes were silent, no issues noticed whatsoever. Drove around a little this morning and they still are going good.

Is it possible I just had excess buildup of brake dust sitting in there?

hadam

I try the same by hosing down brake pads, but did not work well.

It will work fine for 1-2 days or so and then you will hear the grinding sound again.

Yesterday I resurface the rotors and install the new OEM brake pads.

Now all good, no more ugly grinding sound from front brake pads.

citruspilot

chinsk, what kind of difference did the lower control arm bushing replacement do? This past week I had new wheels installed and looked at the main support bushings. The bushing seems to have shrunk. In other words the control arm itself seemed to be to small for the bushing. Maybe thats why when I hit certain bumps I hear a clunk or rattle. Its worse on the right side than the left.

Jeff

fju2112

I just had this problem and figured maybe it had something to do with the snowstorm we got friday. I noticed the brakes pulsating and grinding badly on friday during a snowstorm. I hadn't driven the car in the snow that day, so I didn't figure there was any ice or snow caught in there, but this idd start happening while it was snowing out. I called my mechanic and i'm taking it in tomorrow. The sound only occured when I could feel the abs trying to stop the car, and the braking was NOT working very well particularly on slippery surfaces - it was almost as if something was keeping the shoe from pressing the pad onto the rotor, and seemed to only be the front two (or even just the driver's) wheel. The ABS would kick in and then I would have an awful grinding sound until the car came to a complete stop....and for a split-second after, there would be this strange buzzing sound, as if something had been spinning and was winding down. I get that same sound at times if I see the ESP light go on.

I hope it was just something caught that's not there now; the car was checked out less than three months ago when the pads had more than 30% of their life left (so these brakes are not new, neither are the rotors) and were working fine until now...I'm also not a hard-braking kinda guy; I typically use the tiptronic to up and downshift, so I'm doing a lot of transmission braking in city traffic. the noise went away saturday night, and hasn't come back since, as I have tried to stop short several times to recreate the sound...chinsk, let us know if the sound comes back on yours? Maybe I just need to hose down the wheels like you did?

chinsk

I def noticed less body roll on turns and the car wasnt so much of a handful on the highway. I got an alignment balance and rotation at the same time and I think they also played factors in getting the ride in shape. It was def a noticable repair, I noticed immedatly that it was better.

chinsk

Nah the sound came back, same stuff. I can control it pretty well, as long as I don't have to press hard on the pedal coming to a complete stop it won't do it. I mean I don't have to be a sissy on the brakes I can still put it down but def let off a little when coming to a complete stop to keep it from making noise.

fju2112

yeah i had the exact same problem. seems to be okay now though..

Star420

I had same problem, I don't know why, I had plenty of brake pads.

Solution: Get new front brake pads and re surface the rotor. No more grinding noise.

ZedStyle

check to see if the caliper is rubbing against the outside edge of the rotor (around the circumference). it's happening to my car, i lost a caliper bolt on the highway and had a new one put in. they must have moved something, because now i can hear the grinding noise when i brake. i took off the wheel and confirmed where it was rubbing.
this might have happened to others, and changing the pads might not have really done anything, it could have been the fact that the caliper was adjusted properly when changing the pads and that would have fixed the problem regardless of new pads or old.
just a thought.

fju2112

I had my mechanic check it out on Tuesday...he said they were fine, and now the car isn't doing it...maybe a piece of ice got stuck up there during the snowstorm, who knows? In any case he cleaned them off and the car seems fine now so I'm going to hold off on the new pads until it starts happening again.