Loud screeching noise

[[Dave B]]

Hi All,

Whilst driving along today and looking very smug that my 4wd car was the only car that could get out of our flats car park, suddenly a loud scraping/screeching noise began coming from the front end. It did this all the way home (apart from about two miles where it fell silent) to varying degree's of loudness - but all easily audible from outside and inside the car.

It doesn't seem to be engine related as it doesn't change with revs, it also doesn't change when I depress the brakes. The only ways to alter the sound are by varying speed and by turning left quickly (shifting the weight to the offside). I've had a quick look under each wheel arch but can't see anything obviously wrong, I've also had a look at the outer face of each disc but can't see any heavy scoring. My investigations have ended there as i'm not prepared to lie in 6 inches of snow to check any further!

I'm hoping it's just a stone stuck in the brakes somewhere non-visible but I would have expected the sound to change if I used the brakes? Awesome GTI recently serviced the car and did mention that the front discs would need changing soon as they had quite a bit of wear.

Any ideas? It's worth noting that the car drives fine apart from the aforementioned noise.

 

[S3-Andy]

i would hazard a guess at power stearing or air con??

 

[NHN]

Try turning the aircon on 1st thing after ignition, see if that starts the screeching then, if not try turning wheel full lock each way, if not then check the discs/pads, cant imagine cambelt but nothings impossible, got my missus 2 family cars both have a squeaking cambelt & some wd40 seems to fix that, but not permanent.