car shudders, rear driver brakes burning

[Maric]

When we bought our 03' Murano last year with 53k miles on it we cuudlnt believe how well maintained it was. The only problems we have had is that after about 3k miles the rear driver's wheel would feel as if it were extremely off balance, be hot to the touch and have brake smoke pouring out of it when I pulled over.

I had the wheel balanced as a precaution and installed new brake pads and a rotor. Two days later the problem returned when ever we would hit freeway speeds (55-65mph).

I figured the Caliper was dragging and put an oem replacement on and bled the brakes. This seemed to do the trick for a year until yesterday when my wife called on her way to work and said it was doing the exact same thing as before.

With holidays rapidly approaching parts are hard to order, and I need her car working ASAP (we would share mine but my stealth TT is waiting on a new flywheel that wont be here until the 29th )

Any suggestions before I blindly rebuild that caliper, grease bearings, and hope for the best?

[nitely]

Cheapest repair is to pull out both rear caliper pins left and right side-- clean and regrease liberally. Test it while both rears are up in the air. See if it is sticking when brakes are applied. Have a person spin the rotors and another hitting the brake pedal. Then test drive it. Also check the ebrake. Adjust as needed.

[RayH]

Originally Posted by Maric

When we bought our 03' Murano last year with 53k miles on it we cuudlnt believe how well maintained it was. The only problems we have had is that after about 3k miles the rear driver's wheel would feel as if it were extremely off balance, be hot to the touch and have brake smoke pouring out of it when I pulled over.

I had the wheel balanced as a precaution and installed new brake pads and a rotor. Two days later the problem returned when ever we would hit freeway speeds (55-65mph).

I figured the Caliper was dragging and put an oem replacement on and bled the brakes. This seemed to do the trick for a year until yesterday when my wife called on her way to work and said it was doing the exact same thing as before.

With holidays rapidly approaching parts are hard to order, and I need her car working ASAP (we would share mine but my stealth TT is waiting on a new flywheel that wont be here until the 29th )

Any suggestions before I blindly rebuild that caliper, grease bearings, and hope for the best?

I'm not sure how to check it but the only other thing that affects braking that you didn't replace was the emergency brake cable. Maybe it's not fully releasing on that side? Other than sticking caliper pins, the other thing I've seen (not on the Murano) is bad brake piston seals that cause the piston to stick once they extend out beyond a certain distance though after a year I don't think you would see that on the rear brakes.

[Maric]

Originally Posted by nitely

Cheapest repair is to pull out both rear caliper pins left and right side-- clean and regrease liberally. Test it while both rears are up in the air. See if it is sticking when brakes are applied. Have a person spin the rotors and another hitting the brake pedal. Then test drive it. Also check the ebrake. Adjust as needed.

Sounds like a good place to start. Gonna hand polish both pins with medium metal polish, clean with acetone and then molly grease the hell outta them

As far as the E brake suggestion its flat as a board on the eastern shore so im gonna looses the cable a bit.

If only the cracked flywheel on my stealth was gonna be this easy

[njjoe]

I can understand one caliper freezing, but what are the odds that the replacement caliper would fail after a year?

Does your MO have VDC? Since the problem is only occurring at highway speeds an out-of-spec sensor may be causing the ABS to pressurize the caliper.

After an incident have you jacked up the MO and tried to spin the wheel by hand? If the wheel spins freely after the brakes have cooled then I would look closely at the ABS/VDC system.

-njjoe

[MAric117]

I had forgotten my login in but this is the origional Maric. This is the problem that just wont go away. its been about 4.5k miles since I cleaned the Ipins and regreased them. Last night while driving @ 65mph on the highway the drivers rear wheel suddenly felt like a jackhammer. We limped the car home with smoke pouring out of the brake again.

I once again took everything apart, cleaned and greesed the pins, installed new pads and a new rotor just to leave nothing to chance. I did notice that the pins had become loose, so this time I applied a little blue locktight to the threads.

Took the car for a drive to bed in the brakes, everything felt fine on a 6 mile test drive with a brief sprint @ 70mph.

Today while im working 130 miles from home my wife calls me and said it started doing it again! This is beyond frustrating. Everything is torqued to the propper specs, I used grease that was intended for brake pins, and the pads and rotor are brand new.

With the car jacked up I can easily rotate the wheel. Anyone have a fresh take on this? I'm out of ideas.

[MAric117]

Replaced the rear brakes and traded on a loaded 2012 Tuscon, good bye headache!

[zebelkhan]

I can understand the level of frustration. Congrats on your new purchase.

[nafddur]

Originally Posted by Maric

When we bought our 03' Murano last year with 53k miles on it we cuudlnt believe how well maintained it was. The only problems we have had is that after about 3k miles the rear driver's wheel would feel as if it were extremely off balance, be hot to the touch and have brake smoke pouring out of it when I pulled over.

Did the maintenance records and/or carfax you got with this car show any history of brake work being done at such low mileage?