my driver side front rim was steaming hot after driving 130km/h through the mountains and severe braking for a couple hours

Question

my driver side front rim was steaming hot after driving 110 - 130km/h through the mountains and severe braking (from going downhill) for a couple hours, while i did not notice brake locking when letting off the gas, i assume this could be bad or simply just too heavily of braking going on.

after letting it cool down, i drove for another 45 minutes around 110 km/h and i did not notice the extreme heat. i assume this is 100% due to the heavy hills that required braking but one side was hotter than the other so clearly there isnt a even distrubution between the front brakes, or maybe there is sticking on the driver side, however i have had caliper seizes in the past and this does not feel like that at all (nor sounds like it).

does anyone have a experienced or knowledgeable opinion on this?

Answer 1

The temperatures between the two sides should be similar. If one side is significantly hotter than the other (that seems to be what you're saying) then there is definitely a problem with one side or the other.

It could be that the "cold" side it not working properly and so the braking load all fell on the other side. (Keep in mind that even though you have front and rear brakes, the fronts do the majority of the braking.) So that side got unusually hot.

It could be that the "hot" side is dragging or is stuck. So it's always applied to some degree and gets unusually hot.

If it were mine, I'd take the wheels off and perform a thorough inspection of both wheels to try to identify the problem. Chances are good that a complete brake job is needed here and that includes caliper rebuilds.