Brakes stick when stopped

[DenaliAK]

My disclaimer: I know jack about brakes or how they work, so bear with me here.

When I come to a stop my brakes seem fine. When I release the brakes, instead of gradually loosening up, nothing happens at first and then they kind of pop off the rotor, like they are lightly locking up. Only seems to happens when I come to a complete stop, though. It feels to me like something is just getting stiff in the mechanism, like something needs some lube, but I honestly don't know enough about brakes to even really guess. It feels like it's happening on just the right front but it's very difficult to tell.

I'm totally broke after spending $3000 getting a bunch of other crap fixed, so I need a cheap solution, or if it's not a major problem I'll just put up with it for while.

Any thoughts?

 

[CEN2MENTAL95]

sounds like you have a sticking caliper...only way to resolve that is to replace it

 

[DenaliAK]

Yeah, I wasn't expecting good news. Truck has been a money pit for the last few months, why stop now....lol.

 

[CEN2MENTAL95]

aren't all used cars/trucks....I've got $15k into my 1995 Acura Legend that is worth about $4k book AT MOST...but you know what....everything has been replaced and I could never replace the car for $15k if I tried (comparably speaking)

 

[DenaliAK]

True enough. This one did really well for us maintenance-wise until the last 6 months or so. The only thing I had to replace up until then was the rear suspension and brake pads. Suddenly everything is going to crap....lol. Same thing happened with my '05 Legacy GT. I loved that car, and a small car with 300hp AWD is a blast to drive in snow, but I was having a lot of little mechanical issues that were expensive to fix, especially once it was out of warranty.

 

[CEN2MENTAL95]

True enough. This one did really well for us maintenance-wise until the last 6 months or so. The only thing I had to replace up until then was the rear suspension and brake pads. Suddenly everything is going to crap....lol. Same thing happened with my '05 Legacy GT. I loved that car, and a small car with 300hp AWD is a blast to drive in snow, but I was having a lot of little mechanical issues that were expensive to fix, especially once it was out of warranty.

funny because my neighbor has an 05 leggy GT with over 200k that hasn't cost him a penny beyond the STi shortblock swap that he performed because previous owner overboosted the stock 2.5

 

[DenaliAK]

funny because my neighbor has an 05 leggy GT with over 200k that hasn't cost him a penny beyond the STi shortblock swap that he performed because previous owner overboosted the stock 2.5

Yeah, I know lots of guys that had no issues with their cars. From what I understand, there were basically two iterations of the '05's: The early run, which had a faulty ECU from the get-go that caused all sorts of issues, and the second run where they corrected that and had few issues. I got the first run. Had all kinds of turbo issues because the computer was screwing up repeatedly. Eventually had to replace the intercooler which also had a faulty part, some screen that was supposed to be a rough filter that ended up causing a clog. All sorts of stupid things. Just the computer took about 4 trips to the dealer to get fixed because at first Subaru denied knowledge of any problems. I probably ran 20,000 miles on bad timing and boost.

Anyway. We're WAY off-topic now, but I guess it's my thread so it doesn't matter....lol.

 

[jatkinson123]

I agree completely. But the brakes have been good so far.

 

[ATL]

my truck does this same thing, i cant narrow it down enough tho. a sticking caliper has crossed my mind, i even have rebuild kits for my rears. but im not sure its the brakes. ive been thinking its bad shocks. once u start rolling, i thought the pop was from the suspension settling. if you pay attention, the harder you brake coming up to the stop, the worse the pop is. if u start stopping way early and come to a soft stop, it wont do it. but it could be tons of things. play in the rearend, play in the u joints, brakes, shocks, i even had one "mechanic" friend tell me it sounds like bad/frame body bushings.

 

[DenaliAK]

my truck does this same thing, i cant narrow it down enough tho. a sticking caliper has crossed my mind, i even have rebuild kits for my rears. but im not sure its the brakes. ive been thinking its bad shocks. once u start rolling, i thought the pop was from the suspension settling. if you pay attention, the harder you brake coming up to the stop, the worse the pop is. if u start stopping way early and come to a soft stop, it wont do it. but it could be tons of things. play in the rearend, play in the u joints, brakes, shocks, i even had one "mechanic" friend tell me it sounds like bad/frame body bushings.

You described it perfectly. The harder you stop, the worse the "pop" is. And it is frustratingly difficult to pinpoint where it's coming from. It doesn't bother me hugely, but I worry about the long-term issues not fixing whatever it is will cause.....