About 5000km ago I replaced my front discs and pads. I used Bradi rotors and Roadhouse pads. Both these parts had "Made in EU" (European Union) on the packaging but were not more specific as to origin. For all I know their may be a town in China called EU ?!!

The Roadhouse pads work OK performance wise, but the dreaded brake squeal has started to appear recently.

When I fitted the pads, I noticed that on the backs they had some sort of thin quite hard black rubbery type material glued on - presumably some sort of vibration damping stuff. I fitted the pads as is with no other lubricant or gloop on the back.

When doing the ball joints 2 weeks ago I had the front wheels off, and noticed that this damping material had come unstuck from the back of one of the pads and it was hanging out and almost touching the hub part of the disc rotor. I grabbed it with some pliers and tore off what was protruding.

On the Brickboard 900 section I saw a posting recently from someone who had had a similar problem with their brakes, except in their case it was metal shims that had migrated away from the backs of the pads, and one shim had actually cut a significant groove in the hub part of the disc rotor:

http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=788712

I'm looking at 2 options:

1) Replace pads with Volvo originals
- Do these come with shims or some form of anti vibration material on the back of the pad ? Do Volvo pads squeal ??

2) Buy some of the Volvo shims (shim kit - Volvo Part No. 272187-6) and see if they'll quieten down my pads.
- Will the Volvo shims stay in place ??
- Do they work ??

As usual, any advice / comments appreciated.

John Marshall
1994 940GL wagon 159,000km
Christchurch NZ