# Car Mechanics please respond.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-mechanics-please-respond/92040>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 7, 2001, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-mechanics-please-respond/92040 "2001-11-07T19:15:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2001, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-mechanics-please-respond/92040/1 "2001-11-07T19:15:28Z")

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I had the oddest thing happen to my car last night, I’ve never experienced it before and am now wondering if it’s normal.

I was driving my commuter (87 Ford Escort) when I started hearing scraping sounds. This eventually progressed to loud thumping when stepping on the brake. By the time I got home a loud scrunching sound was accompanying the thumping.

I get home an remove a wheel at a time. Eventually I get to the front drivers side wheel. The caliper has come loose. I pulled out my hex wrench reset the caliper and tightened it back up. It’s back to normal. But, I have never heard of this happening (In case you’re interested, I last changed the front brakes 1yr ago almost to the day, I bought new tires about two months ago).

Anybody see this before?

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**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2001, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-mechanics-please-respond/92040/2 "2001-11-07T19:40:38Z")

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The bolts came loose cause they weren’t tightened hard enough.

Hey…these things happen.

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**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2001, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-mechanics-please-respond/92040/3 "2001-11-07T20:00:50Z")

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No. I’ve never heard of a caliper coming loose before. It must have been that it wasn’t tightened properly in the first place.

You _can_ consider putting a threadlocker on the bolts if you’re concerened of it happening again, but it shouldn’t be necessary. If you do, be **sure** to use the removable kind, like Loctite 242.