I bought a Diamondback Response XE from Dicks about 6 months ago. It always had a small noise coming from the front wheel with every tire rotation, and the person working at Dicks said it was just the disc brake pad. He said it would wear out within a few rides, but it didn't. Today, I opened the quick release hub and closed it, and now whenever I tighten the hub, it makes a bad scraping sound. It does not seem to be the brake pad. How should I go about fixing this? At this point, I would not mind getting back to the noise I had before, as it was not as loud as this noise.

Thanks

I'm guessing brake disc on either a brake caliper adapter (I had this problem and had to grind my adapter down a coupe of mm as my floating rotors rivets were too wide). Or one pad is further out than the other, easily solved by pushing each pad back into the cylinder (be careful, some brakes don't like it and won't push back out).

The stock brakes on the Response XE are Tektro Novela, you can find the manual here https://www.tektro.com/_english/03_su...load.php?fid=2

For the issue you are having, would suggest not following the advice above, in grinding anything, your bike should still be in warranty, as it's only 6 months old, and this would invalidate any warranty.

Would suggest either returning to Dicks, and getting them to fix the issue, but suspect that what you are experiencing is just a set up issue.

What the post above is describing, is a resolution; with pushing the pads, which is only applicable for hydraulic discs, as the Novela's are mechanical they have 1 fixed pad & 1 which can be adjusted. The fixed needs to be set up 0.3mm (yes, its close) from the rotor; in your case this is probably too close, and/or the rotor may be warped, either of these can cause the grinding you are describing. This is an issue common to all mechanical discs, if not set up correctly.

Alternatively, is the caliper centered, as this could also cause the issue you are having, this can be resolved by loosing the mounting bolts, centering, and re-tightening.

What I noticed is that the disc moves a small amount when a spin the wheel. It's the kind that you can see when you spin the wheel fast, and the disc can be seen going from left to right within the brake pads. With setting up the 0.3mm space, it wouldn't be constant as the disc is moving, so is there something I can do that will first keep the disc aligned?

Assuming that the rotor is bolted in to the hub correctly, this sounds like your rotor is slightly warped, this can affect any rotor; you can get specific tools, like the Park DT-2 https://www.parktool.com/product/rotor-truing-fork-dt-2 to adjust rotors, of alternatively, use an adjustable/crescent wrench.

Being as it's only 6 months old, taking it back to Dicks, and asking them to swap the rotor for a new one may be worth a try.

It's always worth giving the store a call! Seeing that I bought the bike on Black Friday, it hasn't been quite six months yet.

It seems Dicks won't do anything without charging some extra high prices, but would it be okay to try to tighten the bolt where the disc is moving slightly to the outside?

Follow the instructions as to centring the rotor, and the Park ones for how to true the rotor (it may be cheaper to just buy a replacement rotor than a tool, and try to true it). For tightening bolts, for your Novela, the rotor bolts should be torque'd down, normally to 2-4Nm, the caliper bolts 6-8Nm.

I'd probably take it back to Dick's as it should still be under warranty. If they try to charge you for it, just hit the LBS, who'd probably do a better job on your bike than the chronie at Dick's who just got finished putting up tents in the aisle.

Get out the crescent wrench, find the spot where it's warped, and use the wrench to bend it back in line, You may have to do this 2-3 times to get it done. Forget paying Dick's at all, they're like Walmart in that they'll hire anybody who can correctly identify three tools.

I'll give the crescent wrench a try first before replacing anything, but the guy at my Dicks, oddly enough, knew quite a bit about bikes from the way he talked.