Brake dust shield collapsed!

[oldaudi]

Morning,
I parked my 6 series yesterday afternoon having completed a short trouble free drive, got back into it a few hours later and there is a horrendous metal grinding noise coming from somewhere. Panic sets in but quickly establish it’s not the engine, after some further investigation I notice the brake dust shield has fallen off and is now rubbing sharp edges against the inside of the alloy wheel.

I can’t take it off so it’s currently zip tied in place with another zip tie looped around the tie rod end. It still rubs and will have a replacement next week having booked it in my local garage.

From what I can work out it was held in place by several bolts but all of these have sheered off. What would cause that? We have lots of pot holes but I assume it would move up and down with the wheel and suspension rather than being smashed up independently. It is 12 years old, so do they erode?

Never seen anything like it in 30;years of car ownership and driving.

Cheers.

[ChocolateFrog]

Not uncommon. It'll have rusted away around the mounting points.

You can usually reach behind the wheel and just rip it off assuming it's only being held in 1 bolt.

[andrebar]

Seen this regularly on elderly BMWs. Usually just cut them off.

[d_a_n1979]

They rust for the fun of it; the older cars it was a hub off design (E39s etc); when mine went funky on my F01; decent bolts with washers sorted them out. They didn't cause issues after that

[thebraketester]

Sometimes the only way to fit new shields is to remove the rear hub (as mentioned above) or butcher the new shields. Worth checking because it can become quite an expensive repair if the hubs have to come off.

[oldaudi]

Thanks everyone. I don’t appear to be strong enough to bend/snap it off so I’ll get it repaired, and the others checked next week now it’s booked in. They don’t appear to MOT requirement either so perhaps if it can be snapped off when it’s on a ramp I don’t even have to have a replacement?

[thebraketester]

oldaudi said:

Thanks everyone. I don’t appear to be strong enough to bend/snap it off so I’ll get it repaired, and the others checked next week now it’s booked in. They don’t appear to MOT requirement either so perhaps if it can be snapped off when it’s on a ramp I don’t even have to have a replacement?

No they are not. When mine rusted I just took them off and ran my car without them for a good few years before replacing them.