Jenn,
Your brakes definately need attention and soon.
I've been doing brakes on my own cars as well as plenty others and have seen many variations of failure.
To me it sounds like the brake material has separated from the backing plate. It scoots around contained by the caliper, but it's ready to degrade rapidly and you'll have no brake (on that side).
I've seen rotors "machined" down by backing plates enough to expose the cooling fins cast within. I was amazed that the driver didn't investigate sooner.
Now, the above is an educated guess.
I've also seen retenion bolts missing and the caliper flopping around on one bolt.
I also once found that the owners child had placed small rocks from the driveway into the wheel openings. They were sized just right and were rolling / scraping around.
Pull the wheel and often times the mystery is quickly solved by a quick visual inspection.
At any rate, at 63K you most probably need to replace the pads anyways. It's not really a tough job, but if you "know enough to be dangerous", I'd recommend a service manual.
For the front, you'll need basic tools like sockets and such, for the rear drums a bit more.
Your brakes definately need attention and soon.
I've been doing brakes on my own cars as well as plenty others and have seen many variations of failure.
To me it sounds like the brake material has separated from the backing plate. It scoots around contained by the caliper, but it's ready to degrade rapidly and you'll have no brake (on that side).
I've seen rotors "machined" down by backing plates enough to expose the cooling fins cast within. I was amazed that the driver didn't investigate sooner.
Now, the above is an educated guess.
I've also seen retenion bolts missing and the caliper flopping around on one bolt.
I also once found that the owners child had placed small rocks from the driveway into the wheel openings. They were sized just right and were rolling / scraping around.
Pull the wheel and often times the mystery is quickly solved by a quick visual inspection.
At any rate, at 63K you most probably need to replace the pads anyways. It's not really a tough job, but if you "know enough to be dangerous", I'd recommend a service manual.
For the front, you'll need basic tools like sockets and such, for the rear drums a bit more.
