Audi A5 B9 Rear Brake Disc and Pad Change

[jdragon]

Hi all, it looks like it's time to put some shiny new rear brake discs and pads on my car.

I've always opted for Pagid discs and pads however there seems to be mixed thoughts on them these days. The only negative of the setup is was they create a lot of brake dust, but I never had an issue with confidence in stopping the car.

With the dust seen on my previous car in mind, I am looking to move away from the Pagid pads at least.

ECP have Brembo at around the same price as everything else these days, and people seem to rave about them but I have no experience using them. Having a quick read on here, ATE come up as recommended for discs and pads. Can anyone share experience on either Brembo or ATE or something else?

I have a full OEM setup currently, so will be calling TPS on Monday to see how their prices compare.

As for the procedure, I understand the calliper to carrier bolt torque is 30 Nm (and the same bolts can be reused if not supplied with the pads if blue threadlock is applied). The carrier to hub bolt torque is 196 Nm but they MUST be replaced.

Do I also need to replace the wear sensor? It's not worn. The car is on the original discs and the second set of pads, the issue is the discs are pretty much at the minimum thickness and the lip is about 1.5mm away from rubbing on the calliper. According to my verniers, the discs are close to the minimum thickness, so grinding the lip off isn't worth doubling the effort.

 

 

[Stevey Y]

2 hours ago, jdragon said:

Hi all, it looks like it's time to put some shiny new rear brake discs and pads on my car.

I've always opted for Pagid discs and pads however there seems to be mixed thoughts on them these days. The only negative of the setup is was they create a lot of brake dust, but I never had an issue with confidence in stopping the car.

With the dust seen on my previous car in mind, I am looking to move away from the Pagid pads at least.

ECP have Brembo at around the same price as everything else these days, and people seem to rave about them but I have no experience using them. Having a quick read on here, ATE come up as recommended for discs and pads. Can anyone share experience on either Brembo or ATE or something else?

I have a full OEM setup currently, so will be calling TPS on Monday to see how their prices compare.

As for the procedure, I understand the calliper to carrier bolt torque is 30 Nm (and the same bolts can be reused if not supplied with the pads if blue threadlock is applied). The carrier to hub bolt torque is 196 Nm but they MUST be replaced.

Do I also need to replace the wear sensor? It's not worn. The car is on the original discs and the second set of pads, the issue is the discs are pretty much at the minimum thickness and the lip is about 1.5mm away from rubbing on the calliper. According to my verniers, the discs are close to the minimum thickness, so grinding the lip off isn't worth doubling the effort.

 

 

Hi Jon, having run just about every combination of discs and pads over the last million miles I can honestly say that Brembo are excellent, both discs and pads BUT the ATE discs will last longer as the carbon content is far higher, Bosch pads are very good used with the ATE/Brembo discs, most other brands Febi/Mintex/Delphi are good but tend to wear faster, if you re use the old bolts 20nm torque is about right as these are stretch bolts and ideally you would use new bolts but absent new bolts you wont want to put to much pressure on already stretched threads, most kits worth getting have new bolts and a wear sensor as if you don't replace the sensor yes the old one works but fails in a short space of time leaving you with a dash warning light, you can phone TPS but have a Defib unit handy, then do the sensible thing and go on parts in motion web site or eBay I have just bought genuine ATE front discs and a Bosch pad kit with sensor cable and new bolts for £170, its all there if you search and the rear discs and pads are always cheaper by about 40%.

Steve.

[Magnet]

Plus 1 for Brembo pads as a in progress trial on a family member’s non-Audi, which are impressing so far, compared with earlier main dealer pads. 
Plus 1 also for Parts in Motion, and I guess Steve has to spend with them more often than I do! - bless him. As we have both said before, P in M offer good-brand aftermarket parts at very competitive prices - never faulted their service so far. 
Nothing too critical Jon, but why ECP? Not trading on their ‘impressive’ % discounts on so called retail prices any more -? 
Possible additional source worth keeping an eye on is Simply Car Parts, trading on eBay, as P in M do. Seem efficiency and competitive. 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[jdragon]

1 hour ago, Stevey Y said:

Hi Jon, having run just about every combination of discs and pads over the last million miles I can honestly say that Brembo are excellent, both discs and pads BUT the ATE discs will last longer as the carbon content is far higher, Bosch pads are very good used with the ATE/Brembo discs, most other brands Febi/Mintex/Delphi are good but tend to wear faster, if you re use the old bolts 20nm torque is about right as these are stretch bolts and ideally you would use new bolts but absent new bolts you wont want to put to much pressure on already stretched threads, most kits worth getting have new bolts and a wear sensor as if you don't replace the sensor yes the old one works but fails in a short space of time leaving you with a dash warning light, you can phone TPS but have a Defib unit handy, then do the sensible thing and go on parts in motion web site or eBay I have just bought genuine ATE front discs and a Bosch pad kit with sensor cable and new bolts for £170, its all there if you search and the rear discs and pads are always cheaper by about 40%.

Steve.

Thanks for the feedback and advice Steve - much appreciated.

How are you getting on with the Bosch pads? I bought a set for the wife's Golf rear a few months ago, but they did not have a friction pad and squealed loads, so replaced them with ECP cheapest brand and they are doing great.

Do the carrier to hub bolts need replacing?

[jdragon]

52 minutes ago, Magnet said:

Plus 1 for Brembo pads as a in progress trial on a family member’s non-Audi, which are impressing so far, compared with earlier main dealer pads. 
Plus 1 also for Parts in Motion, and I guess Steve has to spend with them more often than I do! - bless him. As we have both said before, P in M offer good-brand aftermarket parts at very competitive prices - never faulted their service so far. 
Nothing too critical Jon, but why ECP? Not trading on their ‘impressive’ % discounts on so called retail prices any more -? 
Possible additional source worth keeping an eye on is Simply Car Parts, trading on EBay, as P in M do. Seem efficiency and competitive. 
Kind regards,

Gareth. 

Hi Gareth, I tried Parts in Motion but no luck on these brands for my car this time.

The full Brembo setup from CP4L is £149 with the wear sensor and for no other reason than I pass the ECP store every Sunday where I can do a pick-up from 🙂

Thanks for your notes on experience with these also.

[Stevey Y]

21 hours ago, jdragon said:

Thanks for the feedback and advice Steve - much appreciated.

How are you getting on with the Bosch pads? I bought a set for the wife's Golf rear a few months ago, but they did not have a friction pad and squealed loads, so replaced them with ECP cheapest brand and they are doing great.

Do the carrier to hub bolts need replacing?

Hi Jon you wont need to replace the carrier bolts as these have a coarser thread as well as having grip washers on the bolt itself, as you will find out when you undo yours which requires a fair bit of grunt and a breaker bar, as for your wife's situation that is weird as they all come with the anti squeal pads already fitted you just have to peel the plastic backing cover off, not trying to teach my grandma how to suck eggs but another common mistake is copper greasing the backs of the pads, that will make them squeal as the idea is the rubber pad on the back with heat will attach semi permanently to the piston and support faces of the calliper.

Steve.

[jdragon]

11 hours ago, Stevey Y said:

Hi Jon you wont need to replace the carrier bolts as these have a coarser thread as well as having grip washers on the bolt itself, as you will find out when you undo yours which requires a fair bit of grunt and a breaker bar, as for your wife's situation that is weird as they all come with the anti squeal pads already fitted you just have to peel the plastic backing cover off, not trying to teach my grandma how to suck eggs but another common mistake is copper greasing the backs of the pads, that will make them squeal as the idea is the rubber pad on the back with heat will attach semi permanently to the piston and support faces of the calliper.

Steve.

Hi Steve, thinking back to when I rebuild the callipers on my A4 I didn't replace the carrier bolts then, and as you say, they had the grip washer. I just cleaned them with a wire brush and added a few drops of blue loctite.

I was also surprised about the pads not having the backing on. I've seen it multiple times on various brands I've fitted over the years. Unfortunately ECP didn't have another set in stock to compare. Perhaps QC missed that batch 😄

I'll be going ahead with the full Brembo setup, and will report back on progress in the coming weeks. Thanks guys.

[Stevey Y]

12 hours ago, jdragon said:

Hi Steve, thinking back to when I rebuild the callipers on my A4 I didn't replace the carrier bolts then, and as you say, they had the grip washer. I just cleaned them with a wire brush and added a few drops of blue loctite.

I was also surprised about the pads not having the backing on. I've seen it multiple times on various brands I've fitted over the years. Unfortunately ECP didn't have another set in stock to compare. Perhaps QC missed that batch 😄

I'll be going ahead with the full Brembo setup, and will report back on progress in the coming weeks. Thanks guys.

Hi Jon you wont be disappointed, only other thing I would suggest is as you are rebuilding the rears clean the callipers off with brake cleaner and a Scotch brite cloth then mask off the rubber boots on the carrier pins and give it spray with some Halfords calliper paint, did that with my daughters Q3 when I did her pads and discs and it makes it look like new, still look great a year on.

Steve.

[jdragon]

2 hours ago, Stevey Y said:

Hi Jon you wont be disappointed, only other thing I would suggest is as you are rebuilding the rears clean the callipers off with brake cleaner and a Scotch brite cloth then mask off the rubber boots on the carrier pins and give it spray with some Halfords calliper paint, did that with my daughters Q3 when I did her pads and discs and it makes it look like new, still look great a year on.

Steve.

I did exactly the same thing (different paint 😉) to the callipers, brake disc drum and brake shields on the wife's Golf, only because the discs can be removed without removing the carrier as I didn't have a large enough bit.

Glad you mentioned it - I feel less particular now 😅 

[Stevey Y]

20 hours ago, jdragon said:

I did exactly the same thing (different paint 😉) to the callipers, brake disc drum and brake shields on the wife's Golf, only because the discs can be removed without removing the carrier as I didn't have a large enough bit.

Glad you mentioned it - I feel less particular now 😅 

Hi Jon, as an awfully nice traffic policeman once commented about my cab callipers, painted red eh, makes it go faster does it, apparently he was one of the new breed that have to go on a course about spotting vehicle defects out on the road and told me all about it in great boring detail and when he finished I asked him about the reason why he thought I had painted my callipers, he didn't even come close so when I explained about discs becoming magnetic because of friction therefore attracting any small parts of rust that came off the calliper or disc centre and thats why the disc ends up looking like a 45 record, if they are painted no metallic debris other than what occurs naturally, all this came from a braking seminar for Lucas/ Brembo that I attended 30yrs ago, very glad they knew what they were talking about, they make the brakes.

Steve.

[jdragon]

It's funny really. I try to keep the cars as long as possible, and these extra little preventative maintenance things do pay back over and over.

And for what, an extra 15 minutes work when the brakes are dismantled; it's hardly any effort.

I was boring though and opted for black which by his standards must make the car go slower 🙄 

[jdragon]

No movement on this topic. I will however report back with some photos when the job is done.