DAE get little rocks stuck between rotor and brake shield?

[Scrodee]

My neighborhood and a lot of the streets I drive have lots of small rocks and bits of asphalt on them. At slow speeds, the tires are slinging these all over the wheel wells, I'm sure others have experienced this. That's fine and to be expected with sticky tires. Problem is that every now and again (far too frequently) little rocks will get jammed between the brake shield and the rotor. What results is an awful squealing and loud metallic pops and bangs until it finally gets dislodged. This has only happened on the front.

Most of the time they come out after a few hundred yards or a turn but I've had some stay in for miles. I had one instance where the rock would not come out even after hitting 45+ MPH. I was several miles away from home so I stopped and tried to scoop it out by scraping a piece of cardboard and then a straw between the rotor and the shield but it would not come out. I had to get home and remove the wheel. I had to use a borescope to find the rock and then it took me another 10 minutes to get it out; had to use long needle nose pliers. The rock seemed to have asphalt on it, I guess it may have sort of glued itself to the shield.

Upon inspection, the brake shield is quite close to the rotor and has a weird shape to it. It has a strange shape to it compared to normal brake shields runs completely parallel to the rotor rather curving away. I assume this design has something to do with the two-piece setup and/or for cooling?

I check the rotors every day and they don't look to be developing any nasty grooves but I'm worried that this will eventually ruin my rotors.

Maybe it's nothing but an annoyance but it's awfully embarrassing to ride through my neighborhood with a terribly loud screech...

 

[StingertimeNC]

Ha ha, yep, this has happened to me twice so far. Once I realize it I typically find a place to pull over and do some turning and put the car in revers, then forward, then revers, and see if I can dislodge it. Once it worked, Once it didn't and I had to unmount the wheel to find it. Just put in a screwdriver and flexed the sheild open a bit and it fell right out.

Sadly, My wife's 2023 Honda Pilot is prone to this as well. Twice in 6 months, with the exact same results as above. It's definitle a pain.

I didn't think of this but maybe if we kept a small screwdriver in the car, and we got down on the ground , we could somehow reach our arm around the wheel and put a little flex in the shield to open it up. This may work on the rears but probably wouldn't on the front. So far all of our instances have been rear wheels though.

 

[nix6speed]

Happened once to mine right before wife and I were headed on a road trip. The noise is truly awful but the rock dislodged itself. Hoping it doesn't happen again.

 

[Nivek2slick]

Holy shit this happened to me it freaked me the duck out . I heard this screeching noise when I was driving super slow and couldn't figure out wtf had happened and then it just stopped. Now I know . I thought something was super wrong with my car . Still scary though

 

[remowilliams]

I've had three unwanted noisemakers in five months now, all in the front. The first one was only a few weeks after getting the car and I too was really freaked out by it.

The last one (last week) was insanely loud and apparently really lodged in there.

It had me looking like some wannabe gymkhana driver flying around and driving forward/backwards like I was on a stunt track to get the damn thing out...

 

[Vaughn]

My neighborhood and a lot of the streets I drive have lots of small rocks and bits of asphalt on them. At slow speeds, the tires are slinging these all over the wheel wells, I'm sure others have experienced this. That's fine and to be expected with sticky tires. Problem is that every now and again (far too frequently) little rocks will get jammed between the brake shield and the rotor. What results is an awful squealing and loud metallic pops and bangs until it finally gets dislodged. This has only happened on the front.

Most of the time they come out after a few hundred yards or a turn but I've had some stay in for miles. I had one instance where the rock would not come out even after hitting 45+ MPH. I was several miles away from home so I stopped and tried to scoop it out by scraping a piece of cardboard and then a straw between the rotor and the shield but it would not come out. I had to get home and remove the wheel. I had to use a borescope to find the rock and then it took me another 10 minutes to get it out; had to use long needle nose pliers. The rock seemed to have asphalt on it, I guess it may have sort of glued itself to the shield.

Upon inspection, the brake shield is quite close to the rotor and has a weird shape to it. It has a strange shape to it compared to normal brake shields runs completely parallel to the rotor rather curving away. I assume this design has something to do with the two-piece setup and/or for cooling?

I check the rotors every day and they don't look to be developing any nasty grooves but I'm worried that this will eventually ruin my rotors.

Maybe it's nothing but an annoyance but it's awfully embarrassing to ride through my neighborhood with a terribly loud screech...

I jus had my type s at the dealer for the exact same thing! And was totally embarrassed with the screeching !

 

[starman]

Yep; annoyingly it happens more often on my ITS than it did on my MKV Supra. Perhaps changing to a less sticky tires may help, but boy is it embarrassing screeching into Cars & Coffee haha

 

[Justpassedu]

They should make a little tool of some sort so when this happens we can easily stick it in there and get the rocks out.

 

[ST675R]

I check the rotors every day and they don't look to be developing any nasty grooves but I'm worried that this will eventually ruin my rotors.

I've had this happen once. I had somewhere to be and the rock finally popped out a few miles down the interstate. Was that potentially long enough to be a problem?

Leads to a few additional questions:
1) Do rotors need to be replaced each time you replace your pads? I've done pads only with machined/turned rotors. About 50% of the time I regret not doing both when the rotors feel warped soon after.

2) Will a rock damage the rotors enough to be a problem? Particularly if the rotors will be replaced with the pads?

 

[JusticeFace]

I've had this awful screeching noise happen at least 10 times in the 2 months I've had the car. I'm still not convinced it's a rock getting stuck that's causing the noise but my dealership hasn't been able to find anything that could be the culprit.

I've tried to get it on video but I haven't been able to catch it when it's really loud. Here's the two clips I do have. Is this the same sound you guys are getting?

 

[StingertimeNC]

That does sound like it. hard to tell with a short clip.

 

[SlippyFist]

i haven't had this happen in my ITS yet but it happened a couple of times in my old Si and i had no idea what caused it, it really bothered me too lol

 

[starman]

....Is this the same sound you guys are getting?

Yep, sometimes even louder, but eventually whatever gets lodged in there gets out

 

[JusticeFace]

Yep, sometimes even louder, but eventually whatever gets lodged in there gets out

Yep, the first time it ever happened to me it was legitimately ear piercingly loud and I thought the car was done for. I didn't have cell service so drove it maybe half a mile up the road to call for a tow and it disappeared. Since then it's happened another 10 or 11 times but never as loud as that first time.

After seeing some videos of the same problem, it seems like this is, in fact, what's going on which is really annoying lol. Like someone said earlier, it's SO embarrassing pulling up in your brand new car and it sounds like a shitbox.

 

[Scrodee]

They should make a little tool of some sort so when this happens we can easily stick it in there and get the rocks out.

I'm smelling a business opportunity...