just changed the rear brake pads, everything went normal but on the way home I saw smoke coming from the rear left wheel. looks like the caliper is stuck on the rotor. it made no sounds like it was stuck as I was leaving and everything seemed fine until I was almost home... any suggestions?

pad may have came off only thing to do is to pull the wheel off and take a look.

its kinda tough to diagnose without seeing it.

Looks like youre just gonna have to get your hands dirty... again

yeah, I'm gonna do that tomorrow. it wasn't making any sound at all either, I would have thought that if it was stuck there would be some grinding noise going on.

grinding noise would be metal on metal not pad on metal. If anything you would feel a pull.

it felt completely normal to drive, wasn't pulling at all. I wonder if somehow the caliper just failed?

Its probably your caliper sticking. I have the same thing with mine and by my caliper sticking that brake pad is going to need to be replace sooner so get the caliper replace soon as possible so that you won't have to replace the brake pads again.

so I took a look today and it turns out the break pad itself failed and got wedged against the rotor somehow, never seen that before. took the broken pad back to the store and they gave me a new set and a new rotor. they didn't have the same pads in stock so they gave me the next set up in price and since I had to change both sides again I picked up a second rotor (I like doing both at the same time, not even sure if it really maters but oh well).

all is well again.

thanks for the responses

Wow, glad you solve your problem. Thats a first for me that I've heard something like that.