Thread: Passenger wheel and wheel area hot and smeels of hot metal

On my way home from work tonight I noticed that when I left off the gas to coast my car was slowing faster than usual. It would make a light squeaking noise occasionally, and there was some vibration in the steering wheel. When I got closer to home I started smelling a hot metal smell coming through the vents. When I got home and parked in the garage I got out and did a walk around, and the front passenger wheel well had a ton of heat coming out of it and the wheel itself was uncomfortably hot to the touch. The smell was also very strong in that area.

Any ideas on what the cause of this might be? I'm thinking that perhaps the caliper froze up slightly compressed and is constantly rubbing the rotor, but would that cause the actual wheel to get that hot?

Car is a 01 GTP. 115k. CV's were done just a few months ago with NAPA's.

Thanks.

Awesome. I figured it was the brakes. Hopefully I didn't warp the rotor. Now all I have to do is limp it to work so I can work on it in the heated warehouse. Back roads and frequent stops. Yay. :/

I worked on a 99 gp gt once that did the same thing, ended up bein a destroyed wheel bearing

If you are going to replace the caliper on that side, then I would recommend that you replace BOTH front brake hoses while you're at it. If the hose is collapsing internally and not allow the fluid to return to the master then it will cause the caliper to stick. Went through this with my Bonneville. I think it was the hoses, which in turn caused the caliper to stick then the heat generated by the time I got home killed the caliper off and destroyed the rotor. And yes, it was smoking hot as well. So far the front hub seems to have survived but I know it took an awful lot of heat.