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Sedans BMW 3-Series BMW 3-Series Maintenance and Repair
4446 messages, Last post on Nov 29, 2009 at 12:04 PM
You are in the BMW 3-Series Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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. For about the last week or so, everytime I start driving my car after it's been sitting awhile, I hear a grinding noise (definitely not the ABS self-test) when applying the brakes. If I drive only a couple of miles and stop, there is a distinctive burning-brakes smell as well. However, as I continue to drive, the sound goes away and the smell also goes away, so I'm assuming things cool down with further use. Yesterday I took my son to a friends house about 3 miles from home. The grinding was present and when we got there the smell was bad. At the risk of great pain, I walked around the car and touched all 4 rotors.. they were warm at best. I've done the same thing with a previous car and I knew when I came across a rotor with a frozen caliper because I was on the ground screaming and crying seconds after contact...  Would a bad wheel-bearing exhibit these symptoms? Any thoughts on the emergency drums doing this (I almost never use the emergency brake and it hasn't been on in weeks)? Any other thoughts? My next step is to start pulling wheels/rotors to look for something. Unfortunately, I probably won't have time to do that until the weekend. Thanks! EDIT: The car is a 2001 330Ci w/133K miles
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Replying to: kominsky (Feb 05, 2008 7:58 am) In my case, I've had two BMWs, and both of them managed to wear at least one set of pads at an odd angle, an angle that was able to allow the backing plate to start grinding on the rotor while at the same time holding the sensor far enough away from said rotor to prevent any contact and subsequent light. My guess is that you have a pad that has worn funny and is only partially contacting the rotor. Sounds like it's time for new brakes.  Best Regards, Shipo
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Replying to: shipo (Feb 05, 2008 1:22 pm) I just replaced the pads and rotors in August... being an average mechanic at best, I guess we can't eliminate user error as a source of the problem. Everything has been fine up until now, though. I guess I'll know for sure on Saturday when I start pulling things apart. Thanks!!
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Replying to: kominsky (Feb 06, 2008 9:45 am) Best Regards, Shipo
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Replying to: sunilb (Feb 03, 2008 11:21 pm) Visiting Host
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Replying to: shipo (Feb 06, 2008 12:53 pm) Thanks again for your input!! BTW, if I chucked a pad, I'll have to hold you responsible. I got those PBR/Axxis Metal Master pads you're always talking about.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Feb 07, 2008 9:28 am) I checked under the hood this morning, and everything is clean and the dipstick is reading "full". I'll drop it off tomorrow and ask them to do a leakdown test (and pray that it's nothing serious).... just to be clear-- the leakdown test is to check and see if oil is leaking into the cylinders? If it is, how bad could the problem be (ie, is it fixable at a reasonable cost or am I looking at a very expensive situation)?
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Replying to: sunilb (Feb 07, 2008 2:34 pm) My rule of thumb is that if you carefully monitor oil consumption over the course of a few months and it comes out to 1,500 miles or more per quart, then forget about it, it's just normal wear and tear. A little oil burning is okay. But if it starts to drop regularly, from 1500 to 1250 to 1000, then you have to jump on it and figure out what's wrong. Maybe this was just confusion on reading the stick? Happens to all of us.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Feb 08, 2008 9:19 am) i guess that's good news, but the only thing the mechanic could figure is maybe it's due to colder weather. anyhow, we are going to try a thicker oil (Mobil 1 0-40) and keep monitoring it.
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Replying to: sunilb (Feb 08, 2008 11:57 am) Regards, OW
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