If your G35/350Z suffers from excessive front brake squeal, this may be the fix for you. I've owned my G35 for over 3 years now. I've noticed that as the miles progress on the pads and rotors, the brake squeal becomes louder and more excessive under initial pedal application. As most of us know, the standard 03/04 brakes have very aggressive pads that cut into rotors. This why the brakes work extremely well and also why they wear out in about 30K miles. This heavy wear on the rotor is the culprit. For years I was convinced the sound was coming from loose pad shims and I'd screw around with them hoping to end the annoying squeal. It turns out the shims aren't the problem at all.

Here's the problem. As the rotors wear, they develop a lip on the outer and inner portions of the rotor. The pad ends sitting inbetween these two lips. When the pad is lightly applied, the pad has very slight movement and it ends up vibrating up against these lips. Picture one shows the wear on upper and lower edges of the pad where is contacts lip of the rotor. Picture two shows the lip on the rotor.

Picture #1


Picture #2



The fix? It's simple. Mill down the upper and lower edges of the pads to keep the pad from contacting the formed lip of the rotor. I used a air grinder, but the pads are soft enough that a Dremel should do it. You only need to mill about 1mm. It took me about 10 seconds per pad to mill. The squeal is gone.

Picture #3 (milled pad)

 

Finally, this may solve my squeeling problem.

 

So Dave, I assume this milling job should be done on both the inner and outer pads? I might consider doing this myself, especially since I just recently installed new R1 rotors and would like to add preventative maintenance to the rotors.

 

Yes, the inner (hub side of rotor) and outer (outer edge of rotor) of all pads.

 

interesting! my brembo's squeak when they get dirty. i just wash
the car blasting the dust out and no more noise.

 

interesting, but wouldn't this eventually just lead to a larger lip forming and thus the problem coming back requiring more grinding? IMO a better option would just be to have the rotors resurfaced. A good machine shop should be able to just machine off the lips without sacrificing any rotor material

 

This is correct, but the noise (on my car) doesn't appear until the rotors are at 80+% of their service life so I don't think there's enough time for the wear problem to reappear.

 

Awesome DaveB.

Have you own MR2 before? I think I saw your username in MR2OC.com before.

 

No MR2 for me. Over the years, I've learned that "DaveB" or "Dave_B" or "Dave B" are very popular internet handles