Overheating rear wheels - 2012 Nuevo ES Peug

Last year the offside rear handbrake assembly disintegrated inside rear brake hub causing major overheating, melting hub cap etc.  All fixed/replaced, including bearing.

Since then, both rear wheels become too hot to touch after 45 - 60 mins on the move. Been back in garage twice for checks, handbrake adjustment etc with no apparant cause evident and wheels rotating freely. ( I do also check everytime I`m fully releasing the handbrake and not driving along with it partialy on ! )

Any ideas ?

Tyre pressures definitely aren’t too low? Has the alignment ever been done? If it’s both sides, failing wheel bearings are unlikely, also you would probably hear that.

Perhaps it was like that before you had the brake problem, it’s just that you check it now. All that heat is wasted energy so you’d want to address it of course.

Presumably it had new shoes on both sides? How many miles have you done since?

From memory, it's not unusual to get a little bit of drag with new linings, because they are never a perfect fit for the drum. It could take several hundred miles for the "high spots" to wear down, and the drag can be almost imperceptible if they are only touching in small areas.

Of course, the alternative is that the garage has made a mess of it and put the springs in wrong, or something similar - but it may be worth putting a few more miles on it and monitoring the temp to see if the effect fades away?

[the above assumes of course that a 2012 Boxer has rear drums - if not then ignore!]

Over heating brakes are usually caused  by sticking calliper or hand brake

Thanks for your suggestions, still waiting for garage to report back after a test drive to see if the wheels heat up for them !

It`s a 2008 Peugot Boxer ( Fiat Ducato, Citroen Cargo )  chassis, don`t know why I put 2012 ! 

The mechanical handbrake assembly is inside the rear disc brake hub which has the usual hydraulic caliper on the discs so presumably it could be sticking caliper or sticking/fouling handbrake.

The acrid burning brake lining smell is evident when wheels are hot, didn`t get this on previous lengthy trip to France/Spain.

Tyre pressures are at factory recommended pressure, bearings arn`t noisy or rumbling but might overheating have `cooked `them only to disintegrate later ?

Will ask about alignment and are they sure they`ve fitted springs etc correctly. ( They`ve had it since last Friday ! )

Can`t see us leaving for Scotland tomorrow morning now !

GWR wrote:and are they sure they`ve fitted springs etc correctly.

Sorry, the reference to springs was on the assumption that it has rear drums. You say it has rear discs, so you can ignore that suggestion - a rear disc setup doesn't have any complex arrangement of springs.

I don't know much about the rear disc setup on a Boxer, but if it has "floating" calipers, there's a chance that the pins that allow the caliper to slide from side to side have stopped sliding. If that has happened, the distinctive thing will be that one side of each disc will be shiny and the other less so.

Lack of use causes corrosion of the pad slides so could be they are not slackening off properly, strip down and clean needed

Thanks again for ideas etc.
Just spoke to garage after their test run. They`d only gone a couple of miles before finding rear wheels were again too hot to touch !
They`ve already had the hubs off to clear any corrosion and jacked it up and checked wheels rotate freely with no binding or rumbling etc from bearings so are currently `perplexed`.
In the context of `thinking outside the box`, I wondered if anything underneath the van like water tank or waste water tank was loose and moved during travel and pressed on the handbrake linkage, pulling it on ?  Also, one of our previous vehicles had a brake balance valve in the hydraulic system which stuck, meaning the rear brakes stayed on - garage will see if our Peugot has a similar valve.

If the handbrake is the one I am thinking of it has break shoes inside a small drum around the the centre of the hub and disc pads for the main breaks , if the cable is not releasing correctly the shoes will rub on the hub this could be free when jacked up allowing any pressure of the cable and only happens under load when the wheels are on the floor, I would ask them to check the hand break cables

Good call, will do.
I`m going there tomorrow as they`ve had it since last friday and knew we`d planned to leave for Scotland this morning !

Week 3 and its still in garage !

In summary, they`ve now completly changed and cleaned all rear brakes, both mechanical handbrake shoes etc and hydraulic disc brake pads, checked pistons not sticking, checked wheel/axle alignment, double checked bearings, checked, cleaned, adjusted and readjusted hand brake linkeage from cab to brakes and now looking at hydraulic system re ABS balance valve or other related balance valves in hydraulic system. On inspection ramp, wheels continue to rotate freely with no binding and they consider this does not change when back on ground and under load.

Up to now, the various test drives have continued to show rear wheels much hotter than front wheels with temperatures of 120c.

Garage saying they are highly embarassed by all this and accepting of the possibility I`ll be `recovering` it from them and taking it elsewhere, with resulting damage to their reputation etc.

I made a call to a Peugot main dealer who said this overheating was very unusual but without us paying them £120 for an initial inspection in two weeks time, they could only suggest the handbrake needed adjusting or it was the bearings. 

Trip to northern Scotland now cancelled and still stuck `between a rock and a hard place` as to what to do next.