Hi all,

Over the last couple of weeks the rear brakes (drums) on my car have started squealing. It’s a massive pain in the arse to get to a garage at the moment and the decent garage near work has just turned into one of those ‘Halfords Auto Centres’ which is a pain.

Any thoughts on what it could be and whether it’s worth worrying about?

Ta.

As its brakes, and safety related you really should check it out.. noise could be shues could be down to bare metal, or there could be fluid leaking into the drum…
Can you have a look yourself? take wheel off, drum should be fairly easy to remove?

Didn’t know Avid made car brakes….

when it happened to my old car i ignored it and later discovered that the rear wasn’t releasing properly, led to uneven wear, heat. It worked but wasn’t the best idea to have been using it.

I had a dodgy back brake once and it eventually locked up. Luckily I want going at speed. I didn’t check if it was an avid at the time.

Get it checked.

AFAIK some pads / shoes have a wear indicator (metal set in the pad / shoe that squeals) as they get really worn. That’s time for a change. Others dont -then thats really really time for a change.

But its only the rears so you’ll probably be fine. Who needs 4 brakes anyway 😉

No pad wear indicator on shoes in a drum.
Only on disc / pads systems and not on all of those. If you have really noticed it getting worse get it looked at.
If it fails it will be at the worst possible moment xmas day, new years eve etc. If its a horrible grating metal on metal noise you have worn through the brake shoe material and they have gone metal to metal. The longer you leave it the more will be scrap ie drum will be wrecked as well! If its a nasty high pitched squeal may be a brake cylinder (the thing that pushes the shoes onto the drum) leaking fluid and contaminating the shoes. This isnt good either!
Get it looked at.