What might cause a low mileage 2005 Mazda 6 to squeak near the left front wheel while backing up and the steering wheel is turned to the left?

Answer 1

I have a 2003 Mazda 6 with approx 80k miles. This noise confounded me for months. On ours, it showed up when pulling into or out of our driveway (forward or reverse, always with the wheels turned hard left).

It is NOT the CV joint in the axle. It is NOT anything rubbing in the fender well. It is NOT the wheel bearings. I finally found it after we had the brakes done.

After having the rotors turned and pads replaced, the noise went away for about a month. I thought we had licked it, but it came back.

Then I found it. There is a thin brass (or maybe copper??) bracket that fits between the brake shoes and the caliper assembly. Supposedly this absorbs vibration and prevents the caliper assembly from wearing out around the brake shoes. It is held in place by small tabs that are supposed to hug both sides of the caliper assembly. Those tabs are very weak and as the brake shoes wear out and move closer to the rotor, the bracket tends to move with them (instead of staying in place on the assembly). So you end up with the thin, brass plate scrubbing against the rotor just like the wear warning tab would (and makes the exact same noise). Since it is such a close clearance, you only hear the noise when the wheel is torqued, but it will get more common as the problem goes on.

The fix is easy. Remove the brake shoes, move the bracket back into it's correct place, and bend the retaining tabs back down. (While I had it apart, I went ahead and trimmed down the brass with a Dremmel so it would have more room to shift without rubbing the rotor.)

It seems that getting new pads does not fix the problem because you don't get a new bracket with the pads. You buy some time because the new pads are thicker, but the noise will come back as the pads wear down.

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I honestly wouldn't know, but mine did the same thing then at about 30,000 miles it stopped and hasn't ever happened again, but use to do it all the time at about 20-28,000 miles wierd huh

You may have a broken cv joint i had the same problem in one of my old cars. behind the brake assembly theres a rubber boot with a rod coming out, if that boot tears and dust gets inside it ruins the ball bearing joint..