Squeaking from front wheel

[whoathere]

Hey guys, I recently picked up a 2001 Mountaineer, 5.0 AWD. It's got almost 75k miles. When I got it, it had a slight squeak, and I thought it had something to do with the brakes, it only did it some of the time. Well, I took all four wheels off, and the pads looked great, and not even that old..

That was about 2 weeks ago, today, that intermittent squeak has turned into a nearly constant squeak that is associated with wheel spin. It starts when almost as soon as I touch the gas, and it doesn't stop til the car stops. I'm thinking it could still be associated with the brakes because I didn't actually take them apart, just looked at them through the caliper. The thing is, it doesn't stop when I get the brakes, it used to only do it when I hit the brakes. I am just wondering what else it could be, since this is my first 4/AWD, I dont know if it could be a sign that a hub is going bad or what. Any opinions would be great.

 

[Turdle]

If the rotors look good and smooth with no lines--try a new set of pads.
Break them in according to the directions.

It may be a hub--while the brakes are off--spin your rotor and see if you can feel anything. try moving the rotor around, see if there is any play in the bearing

 

[whoathere]

well, thats what I looked at when I had it apart a couple weeks ago, and the rotors looked really good, no grooves or anything, they look hardly worn at all, and the bads still had a good amount of tread left. I guess I should have checked for a hub problem when I had it apart, but I didn't consider it... I gotta get used to the whole 4wd deal...

 

[MustangP51]

Hubs

It really sounds like its one of the hubs. I have a 00 XLT V8 AWD with 89k on it now. I had to replace the left hub at about 70k and replaced the right one 2 times, once at about 75k and 78k (was bad from the factory, and thats not uncommon for these parts). Another thing, all 3 times that the hubs have started to squeal They didn't have any play in them.

1 last thing to try would be to spray some WD-40 on the brake rotor and pads to and drive it down the road and see if the squeal goes away.
Hope it helps

 

[explrths]

Check your dust sheild also, if it is warped at all the rotor will rub it. I had this problem when i forget to put a bolt in one. Squeeled pretty bad till i found it

 

[whoathere]

Well, after driving around today, it's acting differently than yesterday... once we have another nice weekend, I'm tearing it apart to check pads, probably going to replace them with new ones anyway, and then expect everything as best I can... Stupid snow storm on its way now.. can't get anything done.