I'm trying to adjust my brakes. If I lift my front wheel off the ground and spin it, I hear a "whoosh........whoosh" sound which I believe may be coming from my brake pad touching the wheel. I keep adjusting them, but every time I seem to have it ride with enough space between the pads and the wheel, one of them becomes closer to the wheel eventually. I already put the arms in the top hole to add more spring tension.

did you check that the brake bosses aren't rusted and did you grease them up properly?
do the arms spin freely on the studs without the return spring?
also take a pair of nippers and cut the mold overflow tyre fuzz on the side walls.

Spring tension doesn't affect the spring tension balance between the two arms. You need to individualy adjust both arms so that they pull equally.

The other consideration is that your wheel is also out of true. Wheel needs to be adequately true before any brake adjustment, otherwise it's just a waste of time.

It is a brand new bike, the brake is touching minimally, should I just leave it, I'm sure it will wear down and not touch the wheel anymore.

Look on the lower part of each brake-arm above the brake-pads. Do you see a small screw there on each side? This adjusts the spring-tension. The pad that's too close/rubbing the rim - on that side tighten that screw by 1/4 turn. On the opposite brake-arm - loosen that screw 1/4 turn. Check the centering again. Continue to adjust in this way - experiment - until it's working as good as possible.

Hope this helps you.

Forgot to mention that I did that. Maybe the pads need to wear a little bit?

There's an adjuster on the brake lever where you can alter the pad travel and brake lever engagement point in small amount. If you're fully in and the pads are still rubbing then you need to loosen the cable clamp screw on the one arm and let about 2 to 3mm's of cable slide through and then clamp it again.

Or the pads could be not set up so that they are angled too much, or the wheel is out of true. Just because it's a new bike that doesn't mean much depending on what it is and where you got it from.

urgh. i wrote this long reply and it told me my response was long by two characters. of course it erased my response so i dont feel like writing it again. =( =(

you take a pair of nippers and cut the "mold" overflow tyre fuzz---- what? are you from
San Fran.?

Your front (edited) brake cable housing could also be too long, thus adding tension against the brake arm.
Make sure the housing routes cleanly to the noodle, and that it's not all twisted. Then adjusted the spring screws to fine tune.

New doesn't mean much if it was assembled by a bunch of monkeys.

If the rim is straight and you are hearing some 'whoosh' noise then one of the pads is likely rubbing on some part of the tire - on new tires it is often the cellophane stuck over the label on the tire, or possibly, as someone else said, the little molding nubs.

If the brake pads are rubbing on any part of the tire other than a celophane sticker or molding nubs, then the pads must be adjusted before riding... a brake pad will wear through a tire very quickly and this can be very dangerous!

So... is the wheel true? Is the rim rubbing the brake-pads at the same spot or not? It's kinda like being pregnant.

We can't maybe fix a problem that we're not sure about if it indeed is a problem that we think we might have.

Yeah- put the bike on a workstand and spin the wheels while looking closely at the brake pads. That'll tell you what's hitting.

If a brake pad is contacting the tire, it'll wear through soon. The tire will go bang.

some of that fuzz rubs on the brake pads, annoying in the stand because you think something else is rubbing the wheel, but it turns out to be just the fuzz.
and no, I'm from T.O. if you look at my location.

As others have suggested, is the wheel rim true? I've had a rim out of the box that was warped so much that I'm astounded it passed QA.

I am going to buy a wheel stand this weekend and check it out...thanks for the help everyone.

Intermittent wooshes is more like indicative of a wheel out of true and not the brakes. Constant grinding is probably the brakes,

Ok, I bought a spoke wrench....but have yet to TRUE the wheel. I was riding tonight and when I apply my front brakes...they make a ridiculously loud screeching noise....rear brakes are silent...is this just a break-in period?

You didn't mention the brand/model of brakes you have. But I can tell you of one brake that truly bite - rims and everything. These are Avid Single Digit 3's. They come stock on a bunch of Treks. Don't know about others. But they go out of adjustment just sitting there - I swear! I spent quite awhile determining it wasn't me. Did everything - loosened the cable, adjusted screws, checked wheel(s). I'd get it perfect. Go for a ride. And whooosh! Whooosh! Again & again.

Solution: Better brakes. So it might not be adjustment or wheel being true. I looked around and found lots of people complaining the same thing about the Avid SD 3. Try a Google search on your brand - you might find something helpful.

Brake squeal is usually down to insufficient toe-in, or failing that, really sucky brakes. Rarely it can be caused by some sort of gunk on the rim brake surfaces. Only time I've encountered a break-in period was with ceramic rims.

Park tool and Sheldon Brown's web sites will tell you all you need to know about adjusting toe-in.

Brake arms don't turn directly against the brake bosses. There's a sleeve in the brake arm, which gets clamped against the brake boss. Then the brake arm pivots around that sleeve.

Greasing them is still a nice idea for future removal though.

Brand new bike? Take back to the dealer and have them fix it. That is one of the few advantages of buying new.

I'm curious, what do you mean by this? How would one individually adjust both arms? As far as ican tell there are three variables (excluding wheel dish) to be manipulated: spring tension, cable tension, and pad position. What am I missing here?

maybe it is just the quality. i prefer shimano anytime. even their low end models work all the time. Some of the chinese made stuffs that come fitted on cheaper bikes just do not work....

I don't know. I made some adjustments and after riding, they seemed to have moved again....almost as if they will not hold alignment/adjustment.