Drone from brakes

[Timster]

Have noticed a couple of times that the front brakes have started to drone very loudly. This only happens during light/medium braking and after a good cruise eg after a bit of motorway driving. Never during short squirts and stops.

Holes in the front disks were pretty clogged and Virdee suggested I may be getting a glaze on the pads.
(Normally try to do some hard breaking to avoid this.... but it's quite possible there's a glaze I guess)
Probably got about 4~5mm of pad left.

Anyway, just finished drilling out all the dust from the fronts, so time will tell.
Anyone else experience this noise ??

Top Tip: Don't use a cheapo~sacrificial drill bit.... it may just overheat and break off mid disk. Grrrrrr, was a pig to get out.

[ShaneyB]

Was it a high pitch drone Tim?

[PJC]

I think mine on on there way out too.

[Timster]

Was it a high pitch drone Tim?

Fairly, I suppose. Not ear piercing or anywhere near that high.
Why, what's your thinking?

I wondered if the bells were enhancing/resonating the sound.

[RS4pete]

Yeah, ive had the exact same .... long journeys, light braking and that 'drone'. I've cleaned all the holes out and it hasn't happened since athough i dont do many long journeys so can't say for certain thats the cure.

Only happened maybe 3-4 times in nearly 2 years of ownership though.

[ShaneyB]

One of the Avants I test drove before I bought mine did it on the M4 and the sales bloke said it was because the discs had cooled down so quickly from town driving. They had plently of meat on them too.

Not experienced it in mine so far.

[Timster]

Hmmm. Cheers guys. All very interesting. Weird how it's only recently started to happen. Old pads never did it and this set are OEM's too. (fitted last winter)
Maybe I've backed-off being as agressive whilst I play with these new pesky tyres.
Straaange..... the holes have been blocked for ages.... so why now.

[Timster]

Fixed (I hope).
I've just been out for a mixture of rallying and cruising...... no noise

[adsgreen]

it is probably a glaze on the pads - shouldn't be serious and nothing that a good amount of hard braking can't solve.
Just do several medium hard 50-10 stops to get some heat and then some 70-10 really hard but no abs stops then drive around to cool.

that sales block talking out of his arse - "disc cooled down too quickly".
It's more the opposite - not getting hot enough through town driving.

[ShaneyB]

it is probably a glaze on the pads - shouldn't be serious and nothing that a good amount of hard braking can't solve.
Just do several medium hard 50-10 stops to get some heat and then some 70-10 really hard but no abs stops then drive around to cool.

that sales block talking out of his arse - "disc cooled down too quickly".
It's more the opposite - not getting hot enough through town driving.

Agree, he was a total tit.

The only plus side was he said I could drive it for as long as I liked as 'he couldn't be arsed to work today'.

[Timster]

it is probably a glaze on the pads - shouldn't be serious and nothing that a good amount of hard braking can't solve.
Just do several medium hard 50-10 stops to get some heat and then some 70-10 really hard but no abs stops then drive around to cool.

I do all that periodically, anyway.
That's why I'm surprised this even started. Oh well.... feeling good at the mo'.

[harding]

Re-opening an old thread. I have a similar mid-pitch drone in my car from the passenger side brakes (in sweden the right side ). Its like a sine-wave, abit louder a few moments then abit lower. Also, when driving on freshly laid asphalt, it seems that the overall volume of the "drone" decreases slightly.. For the last week i thought it probably only was hard tires making the sound, but it kept getting slightly higher in volume each day. (Only had the car for a week. Covered 1000km already, love it!...)

Today when on the motorway i had to brake from 130km/h to 80, and the brake sounded more or less like a small train-horn.. After that i tried to recreate the sound, but i was unable until a good 10 minutes later (of motorway driving). The second time I was about 70km/h and then it sounded like bicyclebrakes.... That sqweetchy kind of sound. Not really metal-to-metal, more like freshly installed pads (I remember on my R32 the new pads sounded abit like this til i had them worn)..

So, what can i do? Should i be worried and leave the car to Audi for inspection?

[stu]

Hi harding, considered the wheel bearing? All the more likely if it's on your pothole side

edit: On second thoughts that's probably not it. You describe it only when braking. I'll shut up.

[harding]

Hi harding, considered the wheel bearing? All the more likely if it's on your pothole side

edit: On second thoughts that's probably not it. You describe it only when braking. I'll shut up.

No please dont shut up. Maybe i was unclear.The drone sounds all the time, but not really noticable (high enough) til 70km/h. At its peak at around 120km/h!

[Iain_S4]

I had this on my car. It happens when the pads stop sliding freely in the caliper and start binding on the disc. The steel plates at either end of the caliper get corrosion and dirt behind them that pushes them up against the pads. With the wheel off I couldn't turn the disc by hand.