If I told you it was my mate, would you believe me?

He decided it would be a good idea to switch cars for the morning, so I took his 94 Camry wagon, and he hopped in my EL wagon. Now, he forgot to tell me that this was his first time driving a rear wheel drive, something quite important on a semi-wet road. After putting the foot down a tad too much around a bend, and a bit of fishtailing and over-correction, he smacked side on into the gutter, while I sat in the lane behind him in his s**t Toyota. No body damage, nobody was hurt, and apart from a few chunks missing from my two left wheels, all was well... NOT!

As I'm driving along this arvo, I can hear this squeaking noise at anything over about 25km/h, most likely from the rear. As you go faster, it gets louder. I had two things in mind; bearing or alignment. I couldnt feel that much of a difference, and certainly no wobble or shudder, so I am thinking that some of the wheel bearings might be screwed. Does this sound accurate?

I'm gonna chuck it up on stands in about an hour, see if the wheels spin true and listen out for the noise again. Was going to listen around the diff, and give the wheel a bit of a shake to see if it feels loose for a bit of extra diagnosis, but does it sound like a wheel bearing?

if the sound is coming from the rear i would say it has a bent axle?

Yeah that's what dad suggested as well, god I hope it's not! Schoolies coming up in not long, don't want to send either or both of us broke!

Wouldn't you feel some sort of difference if it was something like that?

I'm off to have a look and listen under it, hopefully that clears it up!

it would depend on how much its bent, if its bent??

Okay well so I put it up, and from turning it, it seems to spin straight, but it will grab at a certain point, which sorta says to me it's warped the rotor a tad or bent the axle a tad (this is why I should listen to someone much smarter than me, thanks Troyman!). It sorta matches the squeaking, which isnt a constant sound, but like a stuttering, squeak-squeak-squeak etc. I'm going to wizz it in to our mechanic mate quickly and see what he says about it all

Right so here's where I'm at. The noise is definitely from the rear. Mechanic suggested machining the rotors might help, but I wanted to test to see if that would do any good. I switched the rear left and right rotors around, to see if the noise either changed sides and the rotor was buggered, stayed the same and it wasnt the rotor at all, or went away. The first thing I noticed was a bit weird, and might explain some part of the problem. When I took off the left rotor, I had a look at the pads. If you were to draw a line diagnally on the pads, both the inner and outer ones, one half would be smooth, like you'd expect, and the other is rough, almost like they would be if you just bought them. Because of this I'm thinking the caliper assembly might be a bit out of place, or bent, so that the pads are only touching on one part of the pad. But i found it really weird that the uneven wear wasnt horizonal, smooth on the inner edge, rough on the outer edge or vice versa.

Either way, switching the rotors got rid of the noise for about 300m until the pads had time to settle in again, and then it started to come back. So I'm assuming the rotor itself is fine. Not ruling out the rear axle either though