Funny noise, burny smell from rear wheel

Special Circumstances

Greetings pros, semipros and driveway heros!

Herself's car - R50 Mini Cooper, ie the first of the BMW minis.

Complaint above intermittent stuttering and power loss. Hasn't been seen for a while but reared its head again today. Took it for a drive myself and noticed a burning type smell from a rear wheel when I got back.

• Car rolls fine as far as I can tell.
• No noises from that wheel, unless they sound identical to the squeaking exhaust mounts/heatshields that have been annoying us.
• Does not appear to be significantly hotter than other wheels.

Jacked it up at home. Spun pretty ok, was expecting more resistance. Some slight rubbing of disc. Other wheel is slightly more free alright.

Now, I have 2 questions:

1. When I spin the suspect wheel, as well as the skimming noise from the pads/rotors there is a noise that I can only describe as "coarse sand tumbling down inside the tyre" as I spin the wheel. What does this point to?
2. Could whatever is giving trouble be intermittently worse and account for some weird sluggishness that goes away after 5-10mins usually?

Handbrake is from what I've heard an "integrated into the disk" type Not my DIY area really, and will most likely pass it onto a pro, but interested what my debug attempts suggest to more experienced people on here.

cletus

http://image.sportcompactcarweb.com/f/9317041/0212_11zoom+toyota_matrix_suv+brake.jpg

The above is known as drum in disc brakes, so you have a drum and shoes for hand brake. The lining of the shores may have broken down and be causing the drum/disc to bind

Special Circumstances

cletus wrote: »

http://image.sportcompactcarweb.com/f/9317041/0212_11zoom+toyota_matrix_suv+brake.jpg

The above is known as drum in disc brakes, so you have a drum and shoes for hand brake. The lining of the shores may have broken down and be causing the drum/disc to bind

Thanks was having trouble picturing how that worked. I don't mind unbolt complete unit X and replace with new kinda fixes but if there's fiddling about to be done and judgement calls on whether this smaller part is too far gone or there's a bit missing from inside this.... time for somebody who has done hundreds of these kinda jobs!

cletus

If you do take off the brake disc, it would be pretty obvious whether the lining of the shoe has come away

Special Circumstances

cletus wrote: »

If you do take off the brake disc, it would be pretty obvious whether the lining of the shoe has come away

Won't have the time, especially if I'm gonna be dropping her to work etc until it's sorted. Doesn't look like it's an order off micksgarage, follow the Haynes manual, bish bash bosh job. Not even mentioned in Haynes from my quick skim through this morning. Job for someone who can do this in their sleep I think :-)

Special Circumstances

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Handbrake is from what I've heard an "integrated into the disk" type

Nope, I was wrong...

"The parking brake operates through the rear caliper piston acting directly on to the disc using the pads."

veganrun

I had something similar happen to my car which is a 2001 Almera. I could smell brake dust and noticed a big drop in power/acceleration where the car would just slow down, but then maybe a few minutes later, it would be fine. I could also hear a sound which I can only describe as a low pitched scoring sound of something pressing against metal.

Turned out it was one of the front callipers that was seizing up. I got a 2nd hand one fitted from a scrap yard but it was worse as it caused the wheel to heat up and some smoke to start coming off the wheel. Ended up getting a refurbished one with a 1 year guarantee which seems to be working fine.

Special Circumstances

Wheel bearing as it turns out. Thought I would have heard something before I smelled something but the car is noisy itself.