Ticking noise from wheel

[Zadumbreion]

Morning everyone.

 

I've been noticing a faint ticking sound coming from the left hand side of the car when driving. I can only hear it with the passenger window down, and it is linked directly to the rotation of the wheels - one tick per revolution. I'm not sure if it's the front or rear wheel. If I gently press the brake pedal then it stops, although that could be for any number of reasons I guess. It doesn't sound like gravel that's trapped somewhere either.

 

Any ideas what it might be? Just wondering if there's a known thing to do with, say, the design of the brakes / discs on these cars...

 

[Oh - and it took a while but I FINALLY found something wrong with the design of the LC500 😄. If you press the fuel filler flap release whilst driving (say if you're aiming for the HUD button but you miss), the flap pops open. Making you look like an idiot until you pull over somewhere and push it shut again. OK it's a TINY thing but seems a bit silly to me (especially given how much nannying the car does in other areas) - why would you ever need to be able to pop the flap open whilst driving?]

Thanks!

 

[Spacewagon52]

Have you had tyres fitted recently?

[malcolmw]

I assume that you have checked the tyre tread area for stones. Which wheels do you have?

BTW. you are lucky to get your fuel flap to open at all!  🙂

[cruisermark]

38 minutes ago, Spacewagon52 said:

Have you had tyres fitted recently?

sounds like a balancing weight hitting the caliper?

[Brian R]

8 hours ago, Zadumbreion said:

 OK it's a TINY thing but seems a bit silly to me (especially given how much nannying the car does in other areas) - why would you ever need to be able to pop the flap open whilst driving?]

Thanks!

 

That'll be the mid flight fuelling facility!

I should have thought it must be something to do with the tyres and as Malcolm says, a stuck stone/gravel or god forbid, a nail.

[Spacewagon52]

On 4/1/2022 at 10:03 AM, cruisermark said:

sounds like a balancing weight hitting the caliper?

That was my thought. Tyre changers do not always check if the weights they add foul the caliper. The clearance on the LS 400 is very small.

[Zadumbreion]

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's been a crazy busy week. I'll try and take a look this weekend!

 

 

[Zadumbreion]

OK so - finally managed to get round to looking at this.

First thing I checked was whether or not the balance weights were fouling - that doesn't appear to be the case.

Next I checked the nearside front wheel's free rotation and I was quite surprised to find that - save for about 90 degrees of rotation - there's quite a lot of friction and the wheel takes a reasonable amount of force to turn it. It sounds like it's the brake pad dragging but I'd have thought that the wheel should rotate freely, no? Even it I get it spinning, the drag is enough to stop the wheel before it can complete a rotation.

So I thought I'd check the offside front wheel and it's the same - spins freely for maybe 90 degrees but then the friction stops it dead.

Doesn't sound right to me?? I did notice that there were a couple of vertical lines on the discs that are about a brake pad's width apart - I'm wondering if that's a clue - perhaps the pads have stuck to the discs at some point, but even if this were the case I can't see that should be enough to warp the discs or to produce enough drag to stop them from rotating easily. And like I said there is friction most of the way round, not just when those marks are lined up with the pads.

Any thoughts anyone?

(PS driving the car yesterday really brought home what an amazing vehicle it really is. How are these cars so un-appreciated???)

Thanks!

 

[EDIT: thinking about this further, it doesn't seem right because each wheel does have about 90 degrees of proper, frictionless rotation with no dragging or rubbing sound at all. The rubbing / scraping / dragging is only happening at certain wheel positions - which also means it isn't a stuck caliper because that would scrape all the time, and not just at certain points?]  

[Brian R]

I guess you need to somehow check if there is any run out in the discs, albeit not an easy thing to do if you don't have the right  equipment. Hopefully with some ingenuity you can  jury-rig something that will provide a clue.

Must say I would be surprised if the dis(s) were warped and all the more reason to rule them out in the first instance.