Rattling noise from rear driver side

[Hassan_skoda]

I'm getting a rattling sound when I start rolling the car. It sounds as if someone is jangling the keys. I have checked all the door pockets to make sure there is nothing rattling there. I only hear it when I roll down the window and in slow speed. I took the car to mechanic but they couldn't figure out anything wrong. Did anyone experience this? Any advise would help. Thanks.

[Hassan_skoda]

 Please see the video of the rattling noise. There is plenty padding left on the pads but and caliper is not lose either. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[octagonalman]

That sounds pretty much the same as when my bicycle brake rotors touch the pads intermittently due to it not being absolutely aligned.

[nta16]

To me that's just the sound of the brake pads against the brake disc.  Using your brakes will get rid of that, until the next time.

 

Where safe to do so you could try braking harder, or using your brakes more to wear off the surface more, but the sound will probably return at some point.

 

You could try spaying all with brake cleaner in case there are bits of grit/crud/muck in there, or an old trick for trapped stones is to suddenly brake hard, stop put it in reverse go back a little and brake hard again and often the stone will dislodge.

 

But you could also forget about it - provided there's nothing wrong with the car's braking and the pads and or discs aren't too worn.

 

My wife's Fabia sometimes makes a similar sound which comes and goes, seemingly without reason, there will of course be reasons, weather, driving environments, use, lack of use, etc., etc..

Edited 9 July, 2021 by nta16
speeling and stuff

[Hassan_skoda]

7 hours ago, nta16 said:

To me that's just the sound of the brake pads against the brake disc.  Using your brakes will get rid of that, until the next time.

 

Where safe to do so you could try braking harder, or using your brakes more to wear off the surface more, but the sound will probably return at some point.

 

You could try spaying all with brake cleaner in case there are bits of grit/crud/muck in there, or an old trick for trapped stones is to suddenly brake hard, stop put it in reverse go back a little and brake hard again and often the stone will dislodge.

 

But you could also forget about it - provided there's nothing wrong with the car's braking and the pads and or discs aren't too worn.

 

My wife's Fabia sometimes makes a similar sound which comes and goes, seemingly without reason, there will of course be reasons, weather, driving environments, use, lack of use, etc., etc..

There is still some padding left on the brake-pads. I have tied braking hard to get rid of any dirt stuck in there but this noise is persisting for the last month or so. Would it be a good idea to open the Calliper, inspect the brake-pads and lubricate the slide pins and calliper?

[nta16]

Have you tried the braking hard, stop, reverse a very short way and brake hard and then drive off, but I'm not sure that will work with this sort of sound.

 

Do bear in mind I am not mechanical or technical or an expert in anything - but I do not think in this case cleaning and relubricating will make any difference, but I could be wrong, unless its the calliper piston edges that are dirty and they're sticking out slightly.

 

I assume the discs and pads were factory original or both changed together if replaced, there is some grooving on the disc which might be causing or contributing to the noise.

 

To me that does not sound bad and may go away with more wear to pads and/or disc.  As long as the brakes are operating correctly (tyres are part of braking too) I would not worry about it.  In fact I have not with my wife's Fabia, I hear it more as a passenger because it' is that side but I have heard it as a driver too but both occasions are all when travelling through town so at slower speeds, I do not hear it on the open road.

 

Now you know where the noise is coming from you should be able to rest easier but if you listen for the noise then you will hear it, but if you are able to ignore it and forget about it (as long as your brakes continue to work well) you may find that one day you suddenly realise the noise has gone and you had not noticed.  But I cannot guarantee the noise might not return, sorry.

 

Others may have different ideas to me or may offered you further reassurance that you can leave it.

 

Cheers, Nigel

 

Edited 9 July, 2021 by nta16

[rum4mo]

One thing that could work wonders here, although I would not worry about that "scuffing" noise is, these short/smallish cars do not have a handbrake lever return spring mounted on the rear calliper, longer/bigger cars usually do have, I think that the logic with these cars is that the handbrake cable is short enough and low friction by design, so that the usual handbrake lever return spring is not really required as the calliper's internal return spring is strong enough to pull the handbrake lever fully back when the handbrake is released.

 

Way back in maybe 2004ish, it was quite common for people owning mainly Fabias, to add an eternal spring to the rear calliper - there is probably still points on the handbrake lever and the calliper body that a spring can be fitted to - as in designed for that purpose, I bought and fitted springs to my wife's 2002 VW Polo and that worked very well.  When she bought a new VW Polo in August 2015, again, I ordered in a pair of handbrake lever return springs, but with these later cars the internal calliper handbrake lever return spring seems to be strong enough to do that job - at least when the cars are new.  Anyway I fitted these 2 springs just to avoid that scuffing issuing ever happening, and so far at 34.5K miles and almost 6 years it still works okay, but I remove the calliper from the carrier and clean everything up every year now, initially only every other year.

 

If you are interested to buying external return springs, the springs that work best, in my mind/experience and I've tried the 2 available version, are :- 

  LH Handbrake return spring   7M0 615 295 (from 1998 Sharan) – 1off   

  RH Handbrake return spring  7M0 615 296 (from 1998 Sharan) – 1off   

 

Edit:- the other version of springs are from a VW Vento or Jetta - but I found that they were slightly too long/light so only added a slight amount of extra returning effort.

 

Another Edit:- bear in mind that 1998 Sharan is a VW, SEAT also made their version so VW or SEAT dealership can order in these springs, Ford Galaxy also used them it seems.

Edited 10 July, 2021 by rum4mo

[nta16]

Yer into modding! 

 

Any ideas for my wife's its on the n/s front.

 

I had a 26 year old Capri with squeak from I think the rear carthorse spring, went through a ford (appropriately enough) and the squeak stopped!

 

 . . . until it the underside dried out.  

 

[rum4mo]

3 minutes ago, nta16 said:

Yer into modding! 

 

Any ideas for my wife's its on the n/s front.

 

I had a 26 year old Capri with squeak from I think the rear carthorse spring, went through a ford (appropriately enough) and the squeak stopped!

 

 . . . until it the underside dried out.  

 

 

Probably strip and clean for the front ones, and chip off any built up corrosion curd stuff.

 

Ford fixed by ford, excellent, my wort experience of driving through fords with a Ford was when my nice new Ford alloys got chipped by a submerged rock/big stone, very annoying, I still remember when we ever drive through that ford - not in my car though, only ever do that in wife's Polo!

[nta16]

22 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

I still remember when we ever drive through that ford - not in my car though, only ever do that in wife's Polo!

After your wife has walked through the water to check the depth - and for hidden stones  . . .

 

When I first noticed the noise I did take the wheel off and gave a spray of brake cleaner hoping to loosen any grit, there wasn't enough corrosion or crud to worry about.

 

This must have been before I hurt my back lifting the stupid wheel 1" off the ground to refit it after a puncture, I should have left it for the next day as it was cold, without wheel studs to hold the wheel on I didn't centre the wheel on the little centre raised lip and that 1" inch drop and twist of my back gave me sciatica that night for the first, and luckily only, time in my life.  Luckily the sciatica didn't last more than that one incident.  A mate showed me the screw-in stud he got in his car's kit and bought me one as a present.  I still found getting the wheel on to this one stud and other bolts in a pain so I bought a second screw-in stud and use two when putting the wheel back on.

 

Working on the car has literally been a pain - but they always are.

 

Edited 10 July, 2021 by nta16

[AGFalco]

Sounds like the brake pads touching the ( rusty ) disks to me.

 

Look on the inside face of the disk for a build up of rust from the outer and inner edges.

 

In the video you can see the outer face has some rust on the brake pad contact points.

The inside face is normally worse than the outside face.

 

Thanks, AG Falco

[rum4mo]

4 hours ago, nta16 said:

After your wife has walked through the water to check the depth - and for hidden stones  . . .

 

When I first noticed the noise I did take the wheel off and gave a spray of brake cleaner hoping to loosen any grit, there wasn't enough corrosion or crud to worry about.

 

This must have been before I hurt my back lifting the stupid wheel 1" off the ground to refit it after a puncture, I should have left it for the next day as it was cold, without wheel studs to hold the wheel on I didn't centre the wheel on the little centre raised lip and that 1" inch drop and twist of my back gave me sciatica that night for the first, and luckily only, time in my life.  Luckily the sciatica didn't last more than that one incident.  A mate showed me the screw-in stud he got in his car's kit and bought me one as a present.  I still found getting the wheel on to this one stud and other bolts in a pain so I bought a second screw-in stud and use two when putting the wheel back on.

 

Working on the car has literally been a pain - but they always are.

 

 

No chance of my wife checking any ford for rocks unfortunately, besides she is just short of 5 feet so might disappear - then who would tend to my many needs??

 

Anyway, lifting wheels or working on cars that have bolts instead of studs - my Audi S4 with its summer 19" wheels are not much fun to get onto the hub, even worse to stack 5 or maybe 6 wheels high when swopping summer<>winter wheels over, but having 2 wheel stacks in the garage gives me an extra 2 high flat storage areas!

 

My old Passat, and my S4, both came with a plastic threaded dowel that is known as a wheel positioner I think - a very good idea, so good in my mind that I bought one for my wife's 2002 Polo and that is now in the spare wheel kit of her 2015 Polo, I also bought a longer aluminium version that seems to be part of the Toureg or what ever the VW SUV was called and probably same for the Audi Q7 - all these cars have the same bolt thread size.  What would be even better to have, as someone has suggested or bought, is using 2 metal threaded dowels of different lengths so you can get the wheel over the first, longer one, then move it about until it is over the second one - I have yet to make up or buy a second one.

 

Various places sell these threaded dowels for use that use for me it was just that the VW Toureg alloy one was probably cheaper to buy along with a plastic one from my local VW dealer, the thread size is M14 X 1.5mm if you are looking to buy a threaded dowel to stabilise the wheels when refitting them.

 

Edit:- they get called "wheel hangers" on ebay by the way.

Edited 10 July, 2021 by rum4mo

[nta16]

Yeap, I can confirm M14 x 1.5mm was what the one I got said it was, I got one with a cheaper finish than the one my mate got me.

 

Both must have been more expensive though as they have a posh name - 'Alloy Wheel Alignment Removal Fitting Tool for Audi VW Skoda Mercedes SEAT Bolt', you can get them in sets of two, but both same length.  I looked up my purchase history.

 

My wife is just below 5 foot too, but she's a good swimmer so has no excuse. 

 

[rum4mo]

On 10/07/2021 at 18:30, nta16 said:

Yeap, I can confirm M14 x 1.5mm was what the one I got said it was, I got one with a cheaper finish than the one my mate got me.

 

Both must have been more expensive though as they have a posh name - 'Alloy Wheel Alignment Removal Fitting Tool for Audi VW Skoda Mercedes SEAT Bolt', you can get them in sets of two, but both same length.  I looked up my purchase history.

 

My wife is just below 5 foot too, but she's a good swimmer so has no excuse. 

 

Sorry, I seem to have conveniently avoided reading/taking in the fact that you already knew about these threaded studs, after writing that post I went searching for a cheapish source and did not find any, though I suppose it depends on what value I put on them. I like the idea of only buying aluminium alloys ones like VW Group supply into Toureg etc as they will be kinder on the alloy wheels, but mainly it seems they are all SS and yes with fancy writing on them to help justify the price. Even VW Group type scrappies seem to be having a laugh when selling the VW Group supplied ones from broken up vehicles. I might need to check the price at my localish VW dealership and if okay order another one in and reduce its length by "an inch", one of the plastic ones would do as a second one, but I seem to remember that the price for cheap plastic "real thing" is near enough the same as the aluminium alloy "real thing". Wrong, 893012223 £3.65 bought from Audi dealership back in August 2019 - that is the standard shorter plastic hollow dowel/wheel stabiliser or as VW Group call them "tommy bar"!

[nta16]

It's better to be told about something twice than not at all.

 

£3.65 is a great price the one I got IIRC was about £7 or £8 inc. P&P, I think both of the one's I've got would be tough to cut by hand so they can stay the way they are.

 

A lot of items are difficult to get at the moment, Covid, Brexit, containers in the wrong place, China/USA/Aus and who knows what else -

price and supply realignments. 

 

[rum4mo]

You missed out canal trouble!

[nta16]

44 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

You missed out canal trouble!

I was covering that with containers in wrong place. 

 

The canal was sorted but the results from it are ongoing, bit like Covid with hospitals, schooling, etc. (wealth, for a few, from contacts).

[Hassan_skoda]

I have taken off the wheel, removed the pads, lubricated the caliper slide pins and pads sliding position on the bracket to rule out any lack of lubrication. Everything around the wheel seems nice and tight. Nothing seems to be loose. The brake disks seem to be in a good shape. There was no dirt or debri found between the pads and disks. I have ran out of ideas.  Annoying rattling noise is still there!

 

The only thing I could think of is to replace the brake disks but I'm not sure.

[AGFalco]

39 minutes ago, Hassan_skoda said:

The only thing I could think of is to replace the brake disks

 

The rust needs to be removed from where the brake pads should touch the disks.

Especially the inside face as this is normally worse than the outer face.

As I said before, you can see the rust on the outside in the video in post 2.

When metal disks gets rusty they expand and cause the rubbing sound.

 

Thanks, AG Falco