Whuttha Clunk?

[geo2maz]

So yesterday:

i start the car, the second i started moving it makes the worse screeching metallic sound, I stop moving, sound stops, i put the car in reverse to park it and it screeches until i stopped. I turn the car off and leave it bc i had to be somewhere so i just take my other car... the sound was like if i had run over a metal trash can and was dragging it.

I come back home a few hours later, start the car and it runs/sounds/works just fine, no weird sound at all. I tested it all over and on the highway, no problem.

Before the screeching episode, i had just driven it 3 blocks to the store and back without any problem. Then parked it for 30min, then encountered screetch.

A week ago I drove it 600+ miles on a road trip without a problem.

They are repaving every god dam street in my neighborhood and have left the streets torn-up/bumpy all over, (streets have been unfinished for a month now!) so the car's been a little roughed up lately.

Any idea what it was? It kind of seemed like maybe a brake clamped-up or locked or something... I didn't feel any kind of resistance, and the E-brake was off. It wasn't engine related because it only happened while in motion,

thanks for an ideas

[erod550]

Something caught in between the caliper and rotor maybe, and it fell out before you drove it again later? Tough to say.

I had a similar sound happen to me once in my old '96 Neon, only it turned out someone had stolen my right rear wheel (a 14" steelie) and left it sitting on the rotor.

[slashsnake]

I'd have to agree with erod. Last year I was driving up in South Dakota through the badlands in my MS3. Had a NASTY squeal coming from my car when I hopped on the interestate. I thought maybe I shelled a wheel bearing or something.

Well they had just been repaving the roads in the badlands, and ended pulling off the wheel and getting a nice size asphalt pebble being ground down to nothing out of there.

[kingtut]

Had a pretty wicked noise going on as well. During the time they were chip-sealing our roads and there was loose chip all over. It went away; luckily.

[ecam8000]

The splash shield on the inside of the rotor is a magnet for rocks. It is also a great noise amplifier. They can also move when the nearby rotor gets hot and touch the rotor making an intermittent noise.

[geo2maz]

cool thanks for the feedback... Totally sounds like it was a piece of gravel/asphalt stuck in there, these roads have been torn up for way too long, ugh!