Brake Disc Life !

[AL3ayali_Dubai]

i dont really have a good background about brakes so i might ask stupid questions if u guys dont mind!

ok first ..
1) How long dose your brake discs last ? (milage) because i want to compare them to mine ..

2) can the brake discs damage even if the pads are not waren out ?

3) how to avoid changing your brake discs ? ( its expensive and i need to prevent it from happening again for some reason i feel its a wast of money )

4) if you drive your r8 around the track how will it affect the brake discs & pads ( if pads and discs are new ) ... if your driving lets say for about 1 hour ( i know it depends on how hard you brake but just a general overview )

5) why doesn't the sensor pop when your brake pads are warn out? ( no experienced in brakse so try to understand ) i noticed that there are two layers of pads in the brake and the first layer dosent damage the brake disc but the second dose ... but still you wont get the sensor light pop up .

6) how do you check your rear brake padss ????? i turend my head 360 degrees and couldn't spot anything

[KfabR8]

1) People on this board have seen as little as 10K miles and as much as 44K miles (I still had pad and rotor left at 44K, but the car's life was unfortunately ended prematurely)

2) Yes, they can warp due to overheating and some people have had issues with the pads getting down to less than half usage where the brass rivets start to wear on the rotors. (or so it would appear that the rivets are causing issue)

3) Downshift and let the engine braking slow you down. Don't ride the brake pedal. Don't be overly aggressive with braking when coming to a stop.

4) Brakes are the first thing to go on the car on a track. Many people will have a set of dedicated track pads (Pagid Yellows seem to be quite common). It will still wear the rotors, though. A few others should chime in on this - Mothertucker, harrison, Bodhii, desperado, mngolfer all have experience with this.

5) They're not worn fully down to what Audi considers minimum. I just replaced the pads on my brakes and one of my front pads was worn completely away (almost touching the backing plate that the pad's attached to), yet the sensor light had never turned on. If I had not changed my pads, the backing plate would have been into my rotors before the sensor lit up the dash light. The sensor line was just getting worn away and the light had not gone on yet - I'll never trust the light to go on before I decide to check the pads.

For what it's worth, the sensor is nothing more than a small loop of wire that is designed to be worn through. Once the loop has broken, it turns on the light. The sensor is stuck into the edge of two pads on the left front and two pads on the right rear calipers and it's only about 1/8" thick. The pads have to be exceptionally thin before they'll eat into the sensor.

Two layers? As in the first area where the pad doesn't have the rivets exposed and then the second part where you start seeing the brass rivets? It's the same pad material all the way through.

6) The rear pads are hard to get a visual check on. My head doesn't fit between the caliper and the front of the wheel well, so I use a flash light and a mirror.

Search on Brake Pads a bit and you'll find a lot of good information on things seen with stock pads and suggestions for aftermarket pads.

[AL3ayali_Dubai]

but do you have to change the rotors after track usage of the car ??? .. if not how many times you think you can go out on a track and then change the pads ( in general ) ?

[AL3ayali_Dubai]

would changing the rotors be a good decision, to rotors which will last more than the audi ones ?

[mngolfer]

After five events I had my rotors inspected by the dealer. He said both my strock pads and rotors were very good. I have 18000 miles on my car. Before and after every track day (not event) I inspect the rotors and pads. I do not want to find out my pads are gone when I need them coming into a corner going 150 MPH.