Originally Posted by Pharmacist

So i spent the whole day yesterday changing the brakes and flushing out the fluid. I went with stock rotors all around but with hawk hp+ pads. Now I am facing 2 problems after driving the car:

1- There are a lot of sqeals coming out of the pads when braking. I know the hp+ can be noisy but that doesn't feel right! Occasionally it can get pretty loud. Now in the service manual it says to put the shims onto the pads and then put the pads into the caliper, and to use grease between each part. I didn't do that because the hawks did not come with any shims, and the ones on the original stock pad were all bent out of shape and looked like crap, so i threw them out. I only greased the sliding pins. Should i apply some brake antisqueal to the back of the calipers, or maybe see if the dealer sells those stupid shims?

2- More importantly, my parking brake doesn't work! It slips a lot now. The lever engages the pads against the drum but it isn't generating the same friction it used to. Previously i can hold the car on an incline with just the parking brake, but now the car slowly rolls down the slope. Is it possible the new rotors have a slightly larger drum and the shoes aren't grabbing as well? Or maybe they are coated in oil and i didn't clean them properly. When I pulled them out of the box the rotors were soaked in oil! I thought I cleaned them ok but maybe I didn't?!?!?!?!