This began 2 days ago and its making me worried

basically after the drive home from work, i park my car in my 2 car garage at home and i get out to smell something burning. I look under the car because i have read on here that once a plastic bag got stuck to the exhaust of some member's car and melted, producing the smell.

Well i did not see anything like that so i went straight to my brakes, the front ones did not smell like anything at all (pads are like 2 months old) but BOTH rear wheels smelled like burnt plastic or some other burning type of smell.

My first guess is that my rear calipers are beginning to stick and the pads are heating up (i never touched the rear brakes since i got the car in October of last year). I also noticed that both rear rotors had some kind of lines on them perpendicular to the center, the front rotors have no such marks (will take pictures tomorrow in the morning as it is dark now)

So my question is this: once i take the wheel off, what do i look for? how do i know the caliper is sticking?

I plan on taking the car to my mechanic on tuesday, but until then, i want to take the wheels off myself and examine.

 

Is this a manual tranny and you set the park brake every time you park?

 

No this is an Auto tranny but i still set the parking brake every time no matter where i park.

I hate "hanging" the tranny in P and i think its not good to do this so i use the e-brake after i put it in P.

This may be related, but at the time i was buying the car, the parking brake cable had to be replaced and now my parking brake sometimes feels funny, it sometimes "skipps" several clicks and just goes up, i tried loosening it and it seemed to help, it kinda was too tight before...

any help is welcome

 

calipers sticking more than likely, did it smell like brakes? pull the wheels, pull the caliper, if you have the tool that turns the rear calipers in use it, or go rent it , the caliper should turn in fairly easy, if it doesnt, it needs rebuilt/ new,...
I put new ones on the back mine locked up on me at 12am on my way home from work so I wasnt gonna risk it I put new on the rear. Cars have a history of rear calipers so replace them both you'll be good to go

 

What do brakes smell like? i never burnt breaks, it smelled like plastic melting or something else melting, its impossible to explain a smell on the internet, especially such a weird smell, if i had to guess i would guess its the pads heating up.

I dont have the tool that you are mentioning, when i changed the front pads about 2 months ago,my mechanic used some kind of C-clamp looking thing that pumps to spread the caliper.

i dont want to spend money on this tool whether it be renting or buying it, as i have no idea how to take my caliper off.
I am pretty much a break/suspension noob. i think for me the best thing to do is to replace the caliper(s) if thats the actual problem (i will find out on tuesday)

But how did u know ur calipers locked up while you were driving? did they smoke or just smell? cause mine just smell

Isn't it a huge coincidence for BOTH calipers to go bad at the exact same time?

maybe its just one caliper and i just cannot distinguish the difference, but i put my nose right up to the wheel and i am pretty sure i smell it from both sides

 

Probably your new parking brake cable wasn't installed right if both left and right rears are smoking.

This rear caliper tool is no more than $10-15. I just bought one recently. The fronts are pressed in with a C clamp but the rears must be turned in with this tool.

 

wow, 2 days ago my rear brakes caught on fire. well, all i know is that i came to a stop light and looked out my driver side window and saw smoke being blown by the wind towards the front. but thought it was maybe just exhaust (it was the morning) until i noticed i was the only car doing it. i rolled down my window and smelled it, but when stopped it had gone away.

 

an easy way to tell if your caliper is sticking is after you drive without hard breaking if you touch your wheels it will be as hot as hell. This has happened to me recently. I would smell burnt brakes after driving and my one rear wheel would be really hot. I replaced the caliper and ever thing is good now.

 

brakes smell like burning rubber almost, I'm pretty sure thats what you are smelling.
Yeah the fronts are easy but the rear calipers must be turned in, and if they are sticking you are gonna wanna get the tool, its closer to 20$ up here in canada but you can rent it from AutoZone or partsource.
But as mentioned drive some highway miles without hard braking, wet your finger and touch the rotor, if one/two rotors are hotter than the others its more than likely your problem. how is your ebrake working, how many clicks till its tight?

my right rear caliper locked up on me while driving, I smelt something, not sure at the time, pulled the car over cause the smell got so strong, got out, saw smoke, thought it was exhaust at first, then realized it couldnt be, rotor was GLOWING red hot.
Anyways, I had no money to do it, but I replaced BOTH rear calipers, rotors, and pads. I would reccomend this to anyone who has one sticking caliper.
Calipers are hydraulic, if you have one side go the other side likely isnt far behind, replace them both it will save you a lot of agony down the road.

 

it might be that 2.3 cm exhaust tip

 

OK the smell is something like rubber or plastic melting so that symptom matches.

The e-brake used to click 3-4 times when i bought the car after they installed the new cable, About 2 months ago i loosened the nut and now it clicks about 7-8 times, the FSM suggest 10-11 clicks for normal operation, but i dont remember why i did not keep adjusting it, maybe the nut reached the end.

So the rear calipers are not done the same way as the fronts are done, hmmm i think ill leave this for my mechanic, i have never done any brake jobs so i am not comfortable doing this, besides the fact i have none of those tools.

Is the e-brake related to this ?
Is it possible that the problem is in its beginning stage? its not like the rotors suddenly lock up and start smoking, do they slowly release less and less and thats why my problem is not at that extreme level yet (ie; smoke, glowing rotor...) ?

 

hahaha yeah i dont think so, but hey looks better than a plain muffler

 

hahahahaha

 

Oh and its 2 full inches maaaaaan stop insulting my shiny muffler tip

damn that came out weird, anyways back to my problem

 

make sure your mechanic checks the ebrake cable first, the cable actually activates the caliper on the rear, the cable mechanism that activates the caliper internally is what seized up on me. But I knew they were going bad, the boots around the cylinder were ripped when I got the car, just never got around to changing them, until it locked up lol

 

Your maxima evolved. Your car became rear wheel drive while you weren't looking.

 

When the parking brake bolt seize up in the caliper, it usually keeps the pads off the disk and you have the split second feeling with no brakes until the pad hits the rotor. I had to replace these on a Pontiac a while back but you are right, they failed one at a time.

If the shop just put on new pads and they didn't turn the rear caliper piston all the way it, the pads will be too tight on the rotor and they may overheat also.

But double check the cable with the parking brake lever released. The cable should not be drawn tight.

Slight grooves on the rotor is ok. New pads will conform to these grooves pretty quickly.

I am getting ready to install rear pads on my car in the next week or so too.

 

The new pads were put on the front, not the rear. i have never done anything to my rear brakes (except for the e-brake cable replacement the friggin dealer did when i bought my car)

Basically, thanks for all the great suggestions, im going to the mech first thing in the morning on tuesday, will report back here with results. Hopefully, he will not charge me through the roof.

 

Could have gotten a Haynes Manual and tried it yourself...just gotta get in there!

 

UPDATE: Alright just got back from the mech
(Also im sorry i dont know the names of brake parts but i will try to explain)

The problem was:
Plastic piece of something got stuck on the exhaust right before the rear beam, it melted onto the exhaust and we could not take it off. it should melt off on its own eventually, as it already is melting. Thats why it was weird that i smelled this from both sides of the car - its close to impossible for both calipers to seize at the same time.

The E-Brake:
It works but i should not use it, basically when u pill the cable from under neath the car u can hear a little grind, which is slight rust on the cable, but it does work, and both calipers are being pulled.

New problem found:
Rear driver caliper - The pads on this side were pretty much brand new (well they were not biting anything rather) When he got the caliper off the two pins where the caliper bolts attached were seized, inside the little rubber boot the pins were not moving at all thus not compressing the pads together. He took them out took the rubber boot off, cleaned it with a wire brush machine and greased them both very nicely and now they slide like new.

Rear passenger caliper - took that off and the pads were pretty much DONE, they had like 3 mm on each side. The pins were moving but he still took them off and greased them. BUT the little round ?piston? inside the caliper (the one u have to compress/screw back in to put the new pads on) was really hard to push in, he did do it, but had trouble with it so he THINKS this maybe a problem. I did not replace the calipers but will monitor for the next little while.

basically for everything today i paid $85 CAN flat, but i asked to find out the price for a rear caliper and he called, said its around $180 CAN for ONE caliper.

I will see how these cheap pads get worn and if the passenger side goes down faster then the driver side then i will replace that caliper.

PS: He told me to keep the pads that were basically brand new so that IF i had to change the one caliper i would throw these pads on.

 

Hmm so scraping does not work, how do i get that off? its basically fully cooked onto the metal piping. Anyone wanna go shopping and need a plastic bag?

 

Hope this helps man, but I'll say it again, replace the caliper, if the main piston was seizing it's gonna seize soon, and you wont be happy.

 

The piston will only back off until there is no pressure on it, think of it as a ratchet, first time you apply the brakes it will tighten right up and will only release until there is no pressure, it will be against the pad, whether they turned it in 'too far' or not. This is why you have to turn this style of caliper back in you cant just push it.
If you have this feeling of a 'gap' in breaking its likely air in your brake lines, they need to be bled more.

 

I guess you never had the adjustment bolt seize experience.

 

2 weeks ago I had the rear passenger caliper seize. I had 2 friends w/me and we were away for a long weekend so I was not going to mess around with it. I brought it to the stealership and they charged me $866 for an after market caliper, set of pads, set of rotors. I thought it was high, but I was not going to let it ruin my weekend of fun with friends!

Do you think the other caliper is going to seize? I didn't think of it till I read this thread. Any suggestions for a caliper in Northern NJ? Doing front brakes this weekend!

 

i had the same problem with my rear passenger caliper it was giving out a burnt smell and i found out the caliper was bad it was stuck to the rotor so i changed the caliper and it was a wrap

 

well until it freezes i need to save up some money, i am broke at the moment and trying to switch jobs, and besides my GF's bday is coming up on the 26'th so i gota break the bank and buy her something nice...

but i think i have some time left on these rotors, when the mech lifted the car and spun the wheels, they spun equally freely so nothing is seized yet.

Oh and i just got all that plastic off my exhaust easily. the trick is for the exhaust to be hot and then u can easily scrape it off with something metal and flat, but the bags name is now imprinted in the pipe, haha my pipe is called Fortino's now (its a grocery store around here)

 

If you can't spare the car then you have no choice but to let the shop do it. In my case the piston assembly in the caliper cost less than $100 (twice). May be the fact that I never use the parking brakes has something to do with it.

The recent A/C compressor failure cost me a whole lot too even working on parts of it myself.

 

agreed, man you NEED to fix this now, while you have the time to get a 'cheaper' caliper/explore rebuilts. Plus its gonna cost a LOT more plus agony if it locks up and you get stranded somewhere, have to tow it to a shop, plus pay their rate for parts AND labour, and have to put rotors on. your call, but foolish to leave it till later.

what adjustment bolt? you talkin about your pontiac? I don't believe there is any such bolt that would cause this on our cars.

 

I have the same problem. I will go to check it. thanks