Alarming Grinding when turning or braking. Help?

How thin are the pads and how worn are the rotors? Could it be the backing plate on the pad rubbing the ridge on the outside edge of the rotor? Or maybe you just wore through the pad.

If you go metal-to-metal, be sure to clean the wheels as often as possible because the iron particles will stick to the wheel and start to rust.

Thanks for the reply. Both the pads and rotors are spent. When I put the summer wheels onto the car last month the pads were less than an eighth inch, so in my book way gone. The rotors are worn to their limits too. Hopefully my new stuff will arrive soon, but we're waiting on a back-ordered grill.

My main concerns are a) safety and b) am I damaging anything? I can't find any parts loose, so I'm fairly certain it is just a pad and/or rotor noise... which will hopefully be solved in the week w/the new gear. I only put on about 30miles/day as it is.

thx again!

I ran my left rear outside pad metal-to-metal for a few weeks due to a stuck caliper piston. It wore completely through the pad material on the upper 2/3 of the pad. Other than the horrible noise, the car stopped fine. I wouldn't have let it slide so long if it were a front caliper, however.

Kai ran his front brakes metal-to-metal for a while on his 240. I guess it stopped OK.

As long as you're replacing the pads and rotors anyway, you're not going to hurt anything. In my case I had to replace the rear calipers because each had a seized piston, and the rotors were probably original so they were replaced too.

edit: this was on my 240 w/~150K miles.