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I am very particular when it comes to my brake pads "touching" my brake rotor, more so the front ones which can be tuned to be zero touch.
Rear single piston caliper can never be zero touch, it is too crude a design and also parking brake drum brake inside rear rotor will always be mild touching.
Front single piston caliper, also can never be zero touch.
Nov 2024 it was this good. This is the result of zerotouch adjustment. Front right wheel. This wheel is a bit bent, see it well and you can see while it is spinning.
Today and due car been un-used too long and one time I washed the wheel and brake calipers and was not able to dry the brake system on the road due to rain,
my zero touch drifted and this is how bad it is today :
Looking at my service record, last zero touch adjustment date of 8th Nov 2024 .......this accelerated loss of zero touch happened within 900 KM of use and 11 months and one time brake system not dried
up well after wheel + brake wash.
First time I tuned zero touch was in 29th Sept 2022 at 36,000KM maximum and was good till I done brake hose replacement approx 6,500KM later.
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These are the "touching" test marks.
Two at outer and one at inner
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When the marks exposed to the brake pad, 1 full spin only
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The inner side is good. No touch.
2 full spin
The outer side is the touching ones. 4 full spin
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Those with similar Brembo 4 pistons caliper package can fine tune your calipers this way and you will love zero touch.
I dunno man. I have had a few cars over the years sit. Today, I have a W212 (wagon) that sits unless I have a bike on its roof (in general I take our RV to the trail head some 5 miles away). The brakes at most will get surface corrosion, a normal thing. I can hear it slightly when I get into and move that car - just getting out of the driveway and the neighborhood clears up that sound.
As for the system 'bending' while it is not used? You have a super fat neighbor lady who takes glamor shots on your hood? There is no mechanisim that would possiblly bend any apsect of your tire/brake/rim systems while the car is waiting to be drivien again.
If you can hear the sound even how slight.... when car is moving that is already brake pad dragging on the rotor , in my book.
The super mild sound I am after (or avoiding) is only possible to hear when you hand spin the front wheel while on the air ....for non 4-matic of course.
Yes surface rust is the most often the culprit, but if you do the marker pen test like I did, it shows more in detail if brake pad retracted position* ( *piston ) is also partly responsible.
Surface rust and brake dust will cause the un-even marker pen scrubbing, but brake pad on opposing pistons calipers like 4 pistons Brembo can be tuned to be zero touch.
Contact rust of bearing hub to rotor can also produce un-even marker pen scrubbing, but mine has no rust, I maintain it often using anti-seize compound.
Usually within 10,000KM ish I will remove my brake rotors to see its mating surface condition to the bearing hub. This means per two years or more, since I do so little driving this past 2.5 years.
If your car is not 4-matic, try jacking the front wheel up and do the marker pen scrubbing test and you will understand what I mean.
If your front wheel ( non 4-matic) can not spin freely at least 10 revolutions when pushed-to-spin like I did on mine , the brake pad is touching the rotor or your front bearing setting could be too tight.
The smooth spin you saw on my video for the tuned zero touch wheel, the bearing freeplay clearance is 0.02mm ( 0.8 of a thousandth of an inch ) as maximum. Hard to get the 0.01mm ( 0.4 of a thousandth inch ) on both wheels.
Spec for bearing clearance/freeplay front wheel not a 4-matic is 0.02mm as maximum, if can do 0.01mm is good.
I jacked up my car at least 4 times a year if not more for under carriage inspection, thus I get to do zero touch test often.