Noise under braking--any suggestions please?

[Northernlights]

Good evening all,

I have a 1.8 NC, on 34000 miles and 2008 registration. For some time, under braking I have had a noise that's hard to describe, but it may best be described as a regular, repeated, fairly soft clonking at very low speeds under braking. The car has been to numerous garages and they can find nothing wrong with suspension components. Equally, the brakes have been checked and there was, apparently, no sign of an issue. The car brakes evenly, does not pull, brakes strongly and smoothly and makes no noise above a few miles an hour (that's audible, anyway). It's most common on partial lock, but always with my foot on the pedal or as I lift off it. Some days it is there, sometimes it si not, and it never does it while the brakes are cool/cold. Obviously I know that diagnosing noises on the internet is notoriously hard, but I am wondering if there are any further suggestions; rattle clips are present and the garage that checked the brakes bent the backing plate back a touch, as it was bent on one side.

This is somewhat annoying, so all help welcome.

Thanks,

Will

Edited by Northernlights on Monday 19th October 20:57

[shindha]

Hi I had something similar, try moving the sliding part of the calipers mine had excessive wear and moved quite a bit so when braking under low speed they clonked. I believe that some one might have greased the sliding pins with copper grease causing wear.
So try moving the floating part of your caliper by hand. The parts are available from mazda or mx5 parts online. Hope that helps.

[buzzer]

I had a similar noise on mine... it did my head in! I tried all sorts and in the end I used a centre punch and made three punch marks on both ends of each of the pads, (the metal part) where they fit in the calliper. The edge of the centre punch marks are slightly raised, This made them "slightly" tight in the calliper, and the noise went completely!

after a couple of years, I replaced the pads... and the noise returned, so I just decided to leave it, and in a few months the pads got a little tight anyway, and the noise went again. Then I took the Callipers off to paint them and the noise came back when I put it all back together!!

for me it was just the pads slightly lose in the calliper...

[Northernlights]

Thank you for the help. It's been back to the garage I trust most; they identified a broken 'screamer' thingy. They also lubed everything up, including the pads. Fingers crossed this sorts it all out. Everything else is apparently all good.