My 2001 Grand Caravan has sat in my driveway for about a month. It is my son's car and he can't have it at college, so we have decided to sell it. Someone is coming to look at it tomorrow, so I figured I would make sure it started.

It started fine, but makes a rubbing noise in time with the tire rotation coming from the driver's rear wheel. When I push on the brake, the noise gets to be more like a thump than a rub (if that makes any sense) and I can feel it on the pedal.

I drove it 5 miles hoping against hope that it would just go away, but it remained pretty constant.

Any ideas what is going on here? It was okay a month ago. Thanks.

 

My first guess is rust on the braking surfaces. It's pretty common after a vehicle sits for a while. Normally it comes off after a few stops. You may want to try some fairly hard stops from 50 or 60 mph. If it is rust, that should get rid of it.

 

Driving a van hard that was making a noise like that didn't seem like the brightest thing, but I decided to place my trust in a complete stranger....

It got rid of 2/3rds of the problem. It still makes a less conspicuous noise, but drives and breaks just fine.
Is it okay to drive like this, or does it require prompt repair? Or would it just go away completely with more driving? (Hey, I can be optimistic.)

Thanks much.