Model 3 grind sound from wheels

[wenkan]

My model 3 performance just 2 weeks and 150mi. Yesterday I noticed a grind noise when I driving in the underground parking garage. Today when I'm driving in the company garage the sound becomes more noticeable. It happens when my car is moving, no matter braking or not.

I check the bottoms there is nothing dropping on the ground, so I guess it's from the wheels?

The service centers are all overbooked until February, sadly I have to debug by myself.

 

[Rsdavis9]

Brake shoes rubbing on rotors?

 

[macgeng]

You have a small pebble stuck in the rotor. Same thing happened to my performance a few weeks ago. It will fall off eventually.

 

[wenkan]

You have a small pebble stuck in the rotor. Same thing happened to my performance a few weeks ago. It will fall off eventually.

Will it scratch/reduce the performance of my rotor?

 

[macgeng]

Will it scratch/reduce the performance of my rotor?

I have no idea. Mine was stuck in the rear driver side for a day. I thought something came loose and was dragging along. It was pretty damn loud too, grinding and screeching noise. I heard it fell off and the noise was gone. I got out to check and the rotor looked fine to me. Crazy that I could hear a small little pebble fell because the car is so quiet.

 

[SD_Engnr]

Are you able to jack the car up yourself to check? It would be helpful if you could have someone help identify which corner of the car it's coming from before raising the car.
I'm inclined to believe it's a small rock/pebble/debris and will eventually fall out, but it doesn't hurt to check it yourself.

It's worth mentioning that I've had both a good and bad scenario related to a scraping/squeaking sound.
First was a failed front drive unit.
Second was just a small rock stuck between the rotor and dust shield.

Odd enough, the more minor of the two issues was louder and quite shocking compared to the squeak/squeal of the failed front drive unit.

 

[wenkan]

When I back out of the stall the sound disappeared suddenly. So I guess it was a rock in the brake system.

 

[TeeEmCee]

You have a small pebble stuck in the rotor. Same thing happened to my performance a few weeks ago. It will fall off eventually.

That’s plausible, I think the same happened to mine.

I had never heard such tragic grinding noises with any other car, maybe there’s something about the Model 3’s brake shield or caliper that makes this more likely to happen.

 

[Gone2Plaid]

Get up to 30-40 mph and slam on the brakes a few times. Pebble will pop out, grinding sound will go away.

 

[jfrieden]

There was a glitchy brake shield that they replaced for me when this happened to my car. It kept getting worse to the point I wasn't sure it was drivable. They replaced the shield on all four of my wheels.

 

[focher]

Wow. I had this happen exactly to me and was really concerned, because the sound is awful. It first happened when I was picking my kids up from school. As I drove off, people were turning and staring at me - probably thinking Teslas have serious issues.

Anyway, it went away as I drove but then happened against a couple of days later. That was a couple of weeks ago and no issue since. If it happens again, I’ll take it in about the brake shield replacement.

 

[mrau]

Some folks have reported driving in Reverse for about 100 feet will cause the pebble/rock/boulder to fall out.

 

[Napboy]

Same happened to me the other day. I was being judgey looking at shitty cars next to me wondering which one was making that awful sound. Turns out a pebble has gotten between the brake shield and rotor on the passenger side rear. When I stopped, I could see the pebble drop down to the bottom so I fished it out with a key. Problem solved.

 

[TeeEmCee]

So then, is the shield too close to the rotor or not far enough? Or is it perhaps shaped such that it retains pebbles? What’s different vs other cars?

It sounds like there are far too many instances of this issue.

 

[wenkan]

So then, is the shield too close to the rotor or not far enough? Or is it perhaps shaped such that it retains pebbles? What’s different vs other cars?

It sounds like there are far too many instances of this issue.

Maybe Tesla just use the traditional design which is OK for ICE cars applying their physical brakes regularly. However we use regen instead of applying brakes most of the time so the debris are harder to be removed?

 

[Prunesquallor]

Just happened to me. No idea how I picked it up, but suddenly this god awful grinding sound from passenger-side front wheel. Luckily I found this thread. I tried backing up, braking, nope. I made an appointment with SC. Then tonight after a short (embarrassing) drive I heard a "click" and it was done. Lasted maybe three low-mileage days.

I did look and poked around the wheel with a screwdriver, but couldn’t find anything. It must have been between the brake rotor and the dust shield. Weird.

 

[focher]

I haven’t experienced it in almost two months. Doesn’t sound like a particularly common problem.

 

[4hs93lsi2]

Hit any pot holes lately? I had two hubs with bearings swapped out for grinding sounds that were more apparent at faster speeds.

 

[SysConsultant]

I live on a dirt road and have had the problem of a small piece of gravel getting caught between the front brake rotor and the backing plate. Freaked me out the first time as it was loud and sounded like I was dragging some light sheet metal part on the ground. Tesla Service Center agreed to see me same day without an appointment, but the sound disappeared on the drive to the SC. I've since had this condition re-occur on several occasions but it always resolves itself. I've found that 50% of the time I can get the rock to fall out by just backing up a few yards. I think that the clearance between the backing plate and the rotor could be a bit larger and perhaps having a slot milled in the bottom of the plate to help eject any foreign debris would solve the problem. But, over all, no big deal now that I know what it is.

The other issue you'll likely find with the performance brakes is that when you first drive the car you'll hear a light scraping sound. Kind of like sandpapering sheet metal. This will go away after driving for a few miles and after a few brake applications. You can speed this up by making a heavy brake application. I've experienced this same sound and solved it the same way on my ICE cars if they happen to sit outside in wet or damp conditions for awhile. In that case it was caused by visible surface rust on the rotors. But my M3 is parked in a heated garage so that's not it.

At first I thought I had some serious problem with the brakes since I had a slight scoring line on the face of one of the front rotors so I had the Tesla Service Center look at all the brakes . They couldn't find anything even though they took all the pads out and checked them. Since then I've learned that it's just a characteristic of the performance brakes and I don't worry about it anymore. The brakes work really well so I have no problem putting up with this minor issue.

 

[Mako3]

Had the same issue with my M3 Performance, front right wheel. A small pebble trapped between rotor and dust shield. I reached through the wheel and pushed the dust shield back slightly and a small pebble fell out. No more sound. .