I'm quite certain it's from the brakes as it's silent when stationary and the pitch/volume doesn't exactly scale with speed. I did just replace the pads and rotors, though not the emergency brake shoes, and that didn't help with the sound. It does sound to me like it's coming from the overall disk brake assembly, rather than from inside the "drum". I don't see an obvious point of contact with the caliper. Video with audio here. Suggestions what next?

2010 SE 2WD 3.5L w\ ~145k miles on it.

 

That noise sounds very consistent with brake shoes rubbing the drum, and since you're able to spin it pretty freely by hand, you shouldn't really have any issue or noticeable noise with the wheel installed. Did you recently install new parking brake shoes, or are they old? If you replaced them recently, did you note whether the friction material on two of the four shoes is shorter than the other two?

If it turns out that you do still hear it after a few miles, see if the noise changes when the brake pedal is lightly applied. If not, try the same by lightly applying the parking brake with the release button/lever in the Release position. If the noise changes when one of the brake systems is applied, that will tell you which friction surface to start looking at further.

But I honestly don't think this slight amount of rubbing will cause you any issue, and would go so far as to say that's normal or possibly even slightly under-adjusted. After getting the wheels and tires on you should apply the parking brake to make sure it engages enough.

-Rod

 

> since you're able to spin it pretty freely by hand, you shouldn't really have any issue or noticeable noise with the wheel installed.

It's very audible on the road. I should also clarify that the sound is what prompted me to replace the brake pads.

> Did you recently install new parking brake shoes, or are they old?

I haven't done the shoes in I can't remember how long. I can't remember the last time I'd used the parking brake, either. I'll try engaging and disengaging it.

 

The sound is very typical of a drum brake system, so I'm not surprised that changing the brake pads and rotor did not change the sound. Changing the rotors may have actually made it worse too if you did not back off the parking brake shoe self-adjuster since you would be putting a new rotor with smaller diameter parking brake drum onto the old shoes, meaning there would be less clearance between the shoes and the new drum portion of the new rotor.

-Rod