Wheel squeaking

[hospitalbuilder]

This is a new one for me. My 99Q has 180K miles, and I have recently noticed a odd noise. It is a light squeaking sound, that seems to be coming from the front left tire. I do not know how long it has been going on, since it is fairly light, and cannot be heard if my window is closed, and we are just now getting into warmer weather for windows down driving. The squeak increases and decreases in frequency depending on how fast I am going, and goes away entirely when I apply any pressure to the brakes. I just recently had new tires installed and an alignment done (about a month ago). I cannot pinpoint the start to when that happened though.

Any thoughts?

[AJRK]

I'm almost positive that would be your brake wear indicator. You should get your front brakes inspected.

[hospitalbuilder]

I would not be surprised if it is the brakes, I know I need to do the rears. But, the noise is occurring while I am not braking, and goes away when I am. It seems counter intuitive to me the brake wear indicator would occur like that. I would lean more towards a warped rotor, but when I do brake it is smooth.

[Buzzman]

I would not be surprised if it is the brakes, I know I need to do the rears. But, the noise is occurring while I am not braking, and goes away when I am. It seems counter intuitive to me the brake wear indicator would occur like that. I would lean more towards a warped rotor, but when I do brake it is smooth.

Oddly enough, that's what usually happens at first. The wear indicator is barely touching at first, and when you hit the brakes, the squeak actually goes away.It's counter intuitive like you say, but that's what happens.If you want to do a quick check, pull back (bend) the wear indicator, and see if the squeak goes away.