Front brake dragging

Hello everyone. I notice that, after driving my 2003 C2 a few miles, the right front pads drag significantly enough to allow me to hear it when my windows are down, and I'm cruising at low speeds - 25 mph and lower. Right off the bat I'm thinking it's caliper rebuild time, but I do not sense the car pulling to one side while braking. I recently bled the brakes hoping that may cure it. I can certainly rebuild the caliper, but I want to gather your input first. Perhaps I need to lube the guide pins?

It won't necessarily make it pull. I just had to do a caliper on my Mercedes. The right side pay was 90% and the left side was down to about 30% and had cracked and overheated the rotor, but still never pulled. If you can push back the pistons without cracking open the bleeder. If you can't, there's your problem.

Quotes source post: 16702122

Okay, so what I think you are saying is if the pistons are difficult to push back, one or more seals have been torn, and contaminates make the pistons stick.

To be fair, it could also be a collapsed brake line. You can take the line off and test it with air, but really I just replace them whenever I replace a caliper because it's not expensive and it's better than having to take the car apart and then wait for parts.

The brake line could be the culprit. Visually it looks okay, but perhaps I accidentally put a kink in it during suspension work. What is odd is the brake drags only after having driven at least a few miles.

In that case check the pins, it may just be hanging up after you've braked. But really, take the wheel off and try to push the pistons back. If you can't, it's either the caliper or the line. At that point, you can take the line off and see if it flows air to test it, or just repair both.

Will do. Thank you for your help, Marlin.

I had a similar problem a couple years ago on my �99. I replaced the rotors, the pads, the brake lines, and rebuilt the calipers, still the problem persisted. The drag only occurred only after several miles of driving, and both front wheels got hot. My problem turned out to be the brake booster. When not braking it should have some clearance before pushing the pin into the master cylinder. Mine somehow had no clearance, when hot, it was always pushing the master cylinder a tiny bit to cause the drag. Got a new booster from Amazon and all was well.

I had an issue last year after fitting new pads that I could hear the pads just rubbing on the discs with the windows down, on checking it was the metal anti squeal plate thats riveted to the back of the pad, one had become detached and was just enough to keep the pad in contact with the disc. All resolved with replacement pads FOC from FCP.

Wow, you guys added some great information for me to ponder. I really appreciate it. I inspected the right front brake assembly yesterday. I was able to move the caliper pistons with my hands. Brake line and pads look fine. The next thing I'm going to do is check the condition of the booster vacuum hose in the engine compartment. If that checks out okay, I'll probably install a new booster.

Hi all. Here is an update on my brake situation. I originally thought only the right front brake was dragging. After a nice drive, I decided to jack each corner up and spin the wheels to see if other brakes were dragging. Both the rears were good, but I discovered the left front dragging as much as the right. I guess I had thought it was just the right because I could hear the sound of the dragging pads reverberate off park cars and such, but most stationary objects are closer to the right side since we drive on the right (in America at least). This made me think the master cylinder to be the culprit. I had already purchased one front caliper rebuild kit and two brake line replacements, so I was disappointed to think I bought the parts for nothing. Today I decided to dive into the it anyway by rebuilding the right caliper and replacing both front brake lines. I started with the right .I had never tried to pull any of the brake pads out of the calipers on this car. Using my bare hands, they would not budge. Stuck. I used a screw driver to carefully pry them out. I soon discovered that the pad backing plates had separated from the pads! "Could this be the cause of the the dragging?" I asked myself. I decided to rebuild the caliper because I am a sucker for challenges. The cylinders slid nicely, and I didn't see any tears in the boots, but the parts in the new kit were begging to come out, so I rebuilt it. Stupid. Anyway, I put the right side back together minus the backing plates and proceeded to do the same thing to the left minus a caliper rebuild. Lo and behold the backing plates had separated! This made me feel good because it validated that both left and right had the same issue that could cause the dragging. I replaced the hose and buttoned it up. I took the car for a long test drive throwing in some hard braking. The high for today was 96 degrees, but I left the windows down to hear dragging, and I like to hear the sweet exhaust note. No dragging noise! After parking her back into the garage, I jacked the front to spin the wheels by hand. Though there was a little drag, it was much less. It would only spin about one revolution before, but now it spins three or four with the same amount of force. So, I am happy so far. Obviously I will monitor the brakes, but I think I fixed it. So there you have it: an official update.

Another way to check the brakes is using a temperature measuring tool on the calipers without having to jack up the car.

Thanks John. I did actually take readings from time to time using my IR gun. It seemed to me the right front rotor was usually a bit higher than the left. Today I took a reading and both were about 150 F right after the test drive. The rears were about 20 F cooler.