Brakes - what should they sound like?

[ramsal]

This past weekend we did our last camping trip of the year. We drove from Vancouver to the Okanagan Lake over the Coquihalla Highway with a top elevation of just over 4000 ft. On the way back we had long stretches of downhill with a speed limit of 120km/h which is where I noticed that my brakes were sounding strange, kind of like a drum. I thought this could be because of the relatively high speed and long braking periods but I wanted to run this by others to see if anyone else has experienced this. Since our trip the brakes feel and sound normal again on our daily commute.

Has anyone else observed this? Is this normal?

[Mathme]

I havent' noticed it on mine and I was coming off a 7400' pass with a boat in tow yesterday. I'd have it checked out by your dealer...the "like a drum" may be something hanging up on them, or a rotor that's possibly warped.

On my old Cayenne, once that thing got about 30k miles on it, the rear brakes would squeak at low speeds with low braking force -- think in a parking lot when pulling in to a space. This would happen only when the car hadn't been washed for a while and the report back was "this is normal as pad dust collects on them". 35k miles later when I sold it they would still do it, but there was no performance loss in the brakes.

[ramsal]

Originally Posted by Mathme

I havent' noticed it on mine and I was coming off a 7400' pass with a boat in tow yesterday. I'd have it checked out by your dealer...the "like a drum" may be something hanging up on them, or a rotor that's possibly warped.

On my old Cayenne, once that thing got about 30k miles on it, the rear brakes would squeak at low speeds with low braking force -- think in a parking lot when pulling in to a space. This would happen only when the car hadn't been washed for a while and the report back was "this is normal as pad dust collects on them". 35k miles later when I sold it they would still do it, but there was no performance loss in the brakes.

thanks for the feedback. I tried to record the sound on my phone but I have yet to see how it turned out. I can already hear the dealer say that they can't reproduce it and therefore they can't fix it.