I have a 2006 Hynundai Sonata with 20,000
miles.
Lately I feel a catch in the right front
when I brake.
And twice I have heard an extremely loud grating sound of metal on metal.
I took it in not long ago,but they said
I needed new rear brake pads.
That didn’t help.
The sound and the “catch” in braking still happens.
Well, it sounds like the front pads are worn. Even if they aren’t, there’s something pretty bad going on with the brakes since you hear the “extremely loud grating sound of metal on metal”.
It would certainly warrrant having your brakes inspected again. Immediately.
Yes, have brake system inspected, but sometimes you can have no metal-on-metal scenario at all, in other words brake system is OK, and yet you hear what you think is metal to metal sound. I’ve road tested cars that I swore had metal-on-metal sound but upon pulling wheels, brake drums, and calipers, found no problem. You see, when you apply brakes you create friction between brake pads and the drum or rotor (both of
which are fastened to wheels and rotate as wheels do). Now I’m gonna get technical but hang in: it’s this friction that converts the motion energy of the moving car into heat energy- (brakes start to get hot). Well, if you’ve lost some motion energy, that literally means car has slowed down. (Overall energy has remained the same but a certain percentage of it is now heat energy.) OK, some motion energy has been changed
to heat energy. But it ain’t always as simple as that- sometimes some motion energy may also be turned into sound energy as well, making what you think is the metal-on-metal sound. If brake system is found to be OK and you can put up w/noise, do nothing. If noise drives you nuts you may have to replace or re-machine rotors/drums and/or replace pads/linings- gets pricey. Sometimes noise will go away, too.
marcia747- no comment on your driving, but you might try applying brakes a good distance before you have to so you never apply brakes hard and they never overheat- but if you have to apply brakes hard of course do. It’s the heat that can start to make brakes noisy. By all means if brakes are found to be unsafe repair before driving car. Hope this has been of some help to you and please post back!
Thought of 2 more things. Brake wear sensors on front brakes may be intermittently starting to contact rotors making an annoying ringing sound. They’re designed this way on purpose to alert you that you need new pads soon but not immediately. However the sound you hear may not be this at all. It may be that one or more “vent shields” just inboard of the brake rotors may be bent somehow, intermittently
contacting the (normally) rusty edge of the rotor. This is a really obvious loud, rotating/grating sound but not exactly like the brake wear sensor sound described above. Tell your mechanic to make sure these shields are far enough away from rotors because you say only twice have you heard this extremely loud, grating sound; which means if and when he road tests the car, he mayn’t hear it and it might
not occur to him at that moment that it could be these vent shields occasionally touching rotors. Bring up these above points to your mechanic which I’m sure you’ll do when you take it in “right away”- poss. big safety issue here.