I have never owned a vehicle with disc brakes that is as confounding as my HHR. Changed rotors because some idiot that worked on the car before I bought it decided to torque the front lugs to more than 150 lbs. Warped the rotors. I put new pads on when I changed rotors. Used Wearever Gold from Advanced. things were fine for about 2000 miles. Then the squeal started - barely noticeable at first but gradually got worse. I should add that this a low speed squeal - last 100 feet coming to a stop. I pulled the pads today and they hardly show any wear from new. Under the one alignment "tin" I found a plate with slots in it. I figured it was an noise cancelling device. I have never seen one on any of the disc brake cars I have owned. I left them off. Test drive yielded very slight intermittant squeal. I'll drive it for a week and see.

I have never had to use the "blue stuff" before. Is this my only option?

I know that I wiil get a bunch of suggestions - that's what is so great about this group, so I'll just say thanks in advance.

 

did you bed your pads and rotors before you went cruising? if not, you should not be calling others names but even if you did that, you should have used some type of anti-squeak stuff anyway

also, how do you know that someone torqued them to 150? I would like to know how you found that out

 

Pads and rotors bedded(?)

I couldn't break them loose with my torque wrench set to 150 lbs (actually my air wrench had a hard time breaking them loose)

The squeal is back same as before.

 

was waiting for the response you will get aftert a weeks cruise. still same. get them replaced

 

The front brakes on my truck have done this at least for as long as I've owned it... Pads are good, rotors are fine. We've put anti-squeak crap on which will last for about 100 miles and then it comes back. We've sanded the pads themselves and put them back on, and that will work for a little bit, but then it comes back. Only thing we can think of is it's the metal flakes IN the pads, and it's just them wearing... We think new pads will fix it, but I'm too cheap...pads have plenty of life left.

Every time I pull up to a stoplight it sounds like I need new brakes...

 

Hand torque the wheel nuts by hand to 100 lbs ft. Threads clean and dry. Actually it will take more than 100 ft lbs to break loose a fastener torqued to 100. Maybe not 150 but it will be well past the 100. That final reading of 100 was taken the last few degrees of fastener rotation and it will take much more to break it loose from a static setting. Get rid of the air wrench. When you are using the air wrench you are imputting both tension and torsion onto the fastener and the 100 ft lb spec is only tension. A torque wrench is a tension wrench.

 

I don't use my air wrench to put on lug nuts, just to remove them cause, I'm lazy and old. Breakaway torque should be on the order of 10% over torque value on most nuts. While there are several things that can change that, if like you say " Threads clean and dry" (always), I've always used the 10% number. (If it's more, I try to find out why).

 

You can try a number of options but, I have found what works best with this type of squeal is to pull the pads then take a file or a power sander to the leading and trailing edge of the pad. You are just trying to take the corner off the edge. You will in fact find a lot of pads now come with the leading and trailing edges chamfered. The squealling your hearing can be caused the edge of the pad.

Also make sure you clean both the pads and the rotors with a good brake cleaning product.. dust can also cause you some noise issue

 

Now there is a great idea. I think I may have to try that. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanks HHorange

 

Does it 'squeal' when wet (rain)? The factory workshop manual says to apply a very thin coating of high temperature silicone brake lubricant to the pad hardware mating surfaces of the caliper bracket only. Clean the brake pad retainers (stainless steel clips). Then install the retainers. No mention or picture of any anti-squeal shims. It does say to lub the sliders and inside the boots sparingly. That's all. Like you have already said they don't appear any different than any other caliper set up I've seen either. I'm looking at a factory workshop manual for 09.