I replaced my hubs, pads and rotors about 5000 miles ago. Everything went pretty well and the truck has worked great till yesterday. On my way home from work I was doing 70 on the interstate and feel the truck pulling to the right slight, then the wheel started shaking pretty badly. I was able to get off the interstate and pull over into a parking lot. There was some smoke coming from the front right caliper/pad area and the rim/lug nuts were quite hot. I did a couple slow laps in the parking lot brakes were working fine the whole time (even slowing to get off the interstate). I was able to limp the truck home, about half way there I stopped at a walmart with an auto center. I asked them to lift the truck but they said they didnt do brake work so they let me jack it up myself with a floor jack. The hub was tight and I checked both sets of bolts (10mm &19mm) on the brakes. Both were tight and the rim/lugs were not hot anymore, this is after about 15-20 miles of lumping at 50 with no shake in wheel or anything. Lastly and this is what baffles me the most is that I had Sears rotated and balance my tires (bought the tires there about 30k ago) on Friday and have only put a 100 miles on the truck when this happened. Could they have messed something up? or is it just a coincidence that the caliper failed/got stuck etc.

2006 Dodge Dakota SLT 3.7V 2WD no abs on the front.

 

I'd take the front wheels off and closely examine the caliper, pads, and rotors. Maybe something got stuck in between? Clean everything as well as you can with brake cleaner. Make sure caliper bolts are tightened to spec and check the brake line and brake fluid. Might be that Sears over or under tightened the lugs. Make sure they're on right.

 

possible could have been a wheel bearing issue, with that many miles on truck its time to think about replacing both, they normally last 100000 miles. I cant see a caliper freezing up while driving unless you had to brake hard for some reason and the piston just got stuck.