This may sound like a silly question but how easy should the front and rear wheels turn when they're jacked off the ground one wheel at a time and the cars out of gear?

Fitted pagid pads to the front a few hundred miles ago and, while they stop just fine, a denfite improvement on oe, I a have feeling they might be dragging. So I jacked the car up and tried to turn the front wheel, it was v. hard to turn but this seemed to be because the drive train was turning aswell. Jacked up the other side - same thing. So I took a look at the back - still really hard to turn but not quite as hard as the front. Now I didn't have the car off the ground before so I've nothing to compare this with - could someone help me?

Car is MY96, so 2 pot calipers

cheers
Simon

 

Hi Simon

If you try to turn a wheel with the other three off the ground you will feel a fair bit of resistance.This is because you are rotating the center differential in the gearbox(even in neutral).The center diffs job is to stop the very movement you are creating hence the resistance you can feel.

If the brakes were dragging you would be able to feel it as you stop at traffic lights etc.The car will come to a stop with a jerk.

Another way to tell is by feeling how hot the brakes and wheels are after driving for a while using the brakes as little as possible.If one is hot and the others are cold its a sure sign of a prob on that wheel

Andy

 

I think you'll find that's a characteristic found on all 4wd vehicles. You will have trouble rotating any wheel freely whilst others are on the ground.
Even when all four are up, it's still not that easy.

Stef.