Brakes making new zero-pressure kinda-squeal noise when cold???

[PhoenixGTS]

I have stock pads about 5k-6k miles old with all street driving. Inspection with a flashlight shows LOTS of pad material remaining but rotors are pretty hammered with a ridge outside the friction area. They have always been a squealing noisy pad at low pressure applications (like when you roll to a stop at a light and everyone thinks you are a loser who cannot afford a brake job on your Viper), but gradually over the last few weeks the brakes are now making a new strange kind of squeal noise that is almost like a synthesized electronic sound effect at zero and very low pressure applications. The noise is worst when you first back out of the garage in the morning, and abates when the brakes heat up. Could it be that once you wear the pads down far enough they lose their chamferring as directed by the service manual? And that those under-chamferred edges make this odd noise at low pressure applications? Biggest thing I am worried about is that the noise is wheel bearing related as it seems to specifically coming from the passenger front. Any ideas?

 

[ArlyDude]

I hope I just fixed my brake noise problem. On mine on the passenger front the inside pad was at one time wore down too much and the feeler must have touched the rotor and put grooves into it. I have the rotor cut and I put new pads on. I will know tomorrow if I fixed the problem.

 

[Fred(DrivingSchool)Kinder]

Have a Viper tech take a look or pull a wheel and take a close look at the front calipers/rotors. Could be a sticky piston.

There is a normal pad squeak with high performance brakes. All my cars(6) have some squeak, except the Jeep. Performance pads squeak at low speeds and when cold. The only one who would not reconize a performance squeak is someone who has never owned a performance car or knows little about performance brake pads.

 

[Tom F&L GoR]

Try switching the inboard and outboard pad on the RF brake. It will change the harmonics and stiffness of the vibrating system enough that if the noise was from the pads, it would at least change and at best go away. Maybe there's a little Arizona dust stuck between the pad and rotor.

As an aside, did you know that Arizona highway dust is the "official test dust" of the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) when they created the oil filter evaluation procedure that the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) use?