I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this problem. A person at my girlfriend's college saw me changing the oil in my truck and asked if i could look at her RS for her and tell her what this rattling noise was that she just picked up a couple of days ago. I figure why the hell not, I miss my camaro, and at least I get to poke around looking at a nice v6 thirdgen.

Not expecting to find this mysterious rattle on the driver's side without driving it and hearing it, I start looking underneath by the tire and figure while I'm here, might as well check how much brake pad she has left and do a quick checkover on the car as a whole. Stuck my finger through the rim and found the rattle.

Anyone else had the brake pad come loose before?

Yes, she's getting it fixed very soon.

 

There's nothing to really clamp that pad on there; it's normal. There's only two cinch tabs on the outer pad that should be compressed against the caliper; but other than that, the pad just stays in it's spot in the caliper. It won't fall out, but yeah, it's an annoying rattle.

Procedure is; you get the pads all changed, calipers back on. Have a buddy step on the brake pedal (a few times) until pressure builds up (make sure the m/c cap is back on), and then stand on the brakes. While the pads are mashed against the rotor, you go to each caliper with a big set of channel locks (tongue and groove pliers). Top end of the pliers goes against a cinch tab, bottom end goes to the caliper. Squeeze the pliers hard to bend the cinch tab down. Repeat for the other 3 tabs (two on each outer pad).

 

it's been fixed already. i was just wondering how common it was. i had never run across it before.