brake squeal!

i have 7500 miles on my r8 and its recently started to squeal, but lately its really bad, so bad im afraid to even hit the brakes. I brought it to Audi service to check it out, they called me back telling me that brake squealing is normal on high performance car, but our Aston, m6,targa, ferrari, and mclaren, have not had any brake squeal, now both the ferrari and the mclaren both have carbon/ceramic brakes, so i dont know if that changes anything. then they tell me the brakes my have glazing and that they are going to charge me 500 for that, because i have had the car for more than 6 months, so the warranty has worn out, really?. and just now, i get anther call saying that they did the front brakes, but there is also some squealing in the back, and thats going to be another 500, wtf. and he also tells me that the squealing will never truly go away... is this normal, or are they just trying to milk me for money without really doing ****... thank u for ur help

Mine squeal at low speed halts - this only started after a very vigourous track day....

ak007kb,
The same happen to me. The dealer want to charge me 400 for taking the galzing off, but they said that it will come back again later.
I will change my brake pads to a different brand, that should re surface the disc.
I think that still will be cheaper to wait and get new pads.
Another thing that I'm going to try is to go to the track this weekend, they said that it should remove the glazing.

Mine has done it since 500 miles. Only when slowly stopping. I complained and the dealer gave me an Audi pamplet that said brake squealing was normal. My service manager told me that he wished Audi would just fix the problem instead of printing up brochures.

4200 miles; brakes are silent.

Had the problem when the car was new. Took delivery in winter. No noise after first few hundred miles or when brakes had warmed up. After 6500 miles I noticed it came back but the weather is really cold again!

Does it make any difference to wash the car? My A6 used to squeal very loudly when it accumulated a lot of pad dust. Just turning the hose on the front wheels to thoroughly flush out the brake dust (and then drying them, of course, with a few gentle stops) would drastically curtail the brake noise. Dealer eventually found some non-stock pads that were better. It has a lot to do with pad characteristics and there are alternatives.

Washing the wheels/brakes won't do much, my experience shows. Something that usually works for at least a while is to rotate the pads to the other side of the same rotor. The different surface profiles between the pad and the rotor tends to disturb the vibrations that cause the noise. It had a big effect on my car just recently, and it's not very difficult to do. There's a thread here on the details of changing brake pads.

mt

Mine squeal at low speed halts - this only started after a very vigourous track day....

^^^ What he said ^^^

Mine squealed for approximately 70 miles after each track day I've done. They have settled back in to being quiet.

I think the cold weather has something to do with it. It's getting quite cold in Idaho now and mine are terrible in the morning but better after warming up or later in the day. A series of hard stops will keep them quiet for a couple of days. Washing the wheels doesn't seem to do anything.

My brakes have squealed from mile one. I only had ~150 miles on the car before I stored it, but my brakes are REALLY loud at slow speeds. The dealer says it is normal. They say it is a glazing problem on the pads. Stop fast at 50 MPH and they say the problem will go away. NOT!

thanks for all the help guys... yea dont listen to audi, they will just try to bull**** you, squealing may be normal, but not that loud, thats just plain ridiculous... They did my front two, then called me to tell me that my rear brakes were also squealing, and they wanted to charge me another 450. I asked them if they were serious, y would i just want half of my brakes done, so that i can come back in 2 weeks, to do the same to my rear brakes... I told them to do it and that i wouldnt pay for it... they did the back, then called me telling me there was still more squealing from the back and that they were going to replace the pads, free of charge, so i said fine. Then they tell me there is still squealing in the front, and that they have to replace the front pads. i get a call the next day telling me they brought the wrong pads, and that they are on back order, and that they have to come from Germany. I said Fu*k it give me my car and order the pads...

i dont think its the cold factor, bc my break squeal came when the car warmed up a little bit.

My brakes squeaked since day 1. Took it in, dealer said it's normal. I did NOT poke their eyes out, and just left.

I hate the **** dealers. They are mostly crooked. I gave up taking my cars in for small problems years ago.

Brakes squeak? I just turn up the music louder. There is no winning with these dealers. I have an engine checklight for cylinder misfires. They reset it and said come back if it happens again. It happened the next day, and 4,000 miles later, I'm still driving it. I don't want to deal with the pain of dealers.

Too bad these dealers give us that painful feeling inside. It's really a shame.

Great if it works for u, but it upsets me so much that i have to let them hear it, after all, i didnt buy a kia, so id expect a little more loyalty, especially since my family bought two q7 and a porsche from them, so when im not happy with their work i tell them,or it will keep happening and as soon as they get the brakes from germany, they are going to replace them... I know most of the workers there, and they are really great people, but its usually the whole business side that screws up everything, and with the economic problem, i think that just adds to it

brake squeak is ok, until it gets to loud, sometimes im afraid to hit the brakes... Who knew i could be embarrassed driving an r8 lol...

yes, i'm totally on your side. I've been through that and I know the frustration. I had a Vantage last year and the brake squeaked all day long. I kept taking it in until they fixed it.

Keep all your receipts and make sure you contact a good lemon law attorney. brakes noise is not normally considered a lemon issue, but it adds to the fact that you are having problems. This may just push them to get things fixed before it gets ugly.

I went through it with the Vantage. Ended up with a refund.

You have to stand out and yell sometimes, and demand your rights. I was stepped on for years until I had enough of it.

Sorry about my yapping.

One of the main problems here is that the brakes are designed with a certain level of performance in mind and the squeaking is generated normally by vibration being transmitted through the pad or the pad surface is not getting hot enough. What we look at when we have customers report this is what measures are already fitted to the brakes to stop this from happening in the first instance.

One cure we did find was to remove the pads from the calliper, clean the pad face, do the obvious and apply copper slip to the sides and reverse of the pad but also apply some high temperature red silicone paste. This paste then gets hot and begins to go hard but remains flexible and this in many cases works well and helps prevent vibration from the calliper transferring into the pad, this is the main problem to prevent as it causes squeaking. This can be purchased from most motorsport parts suppliers or specialists.

Another aspect that can cause squeaking is imperfections on scored discs which is a common occurrence when the disc is cross drilled so again another area to inspect.

I hope this is of help.

Kind regards,

Ed Jackson

its ok i know how u feel, we pay alot of money for a car thats close to perfection... I hate aston martin, i love the car, but my brother brought in the vanquish for a check up, and gets tabbed with a 3000 bill. its crazy...lol

thanks a lot, ill make sure to check it out and tell them about it

Glazing schmazing -

If I had this issue, I'd chamfer a 45 on the leading and trailing edges of each pad and watch the noise subside.

thanks for all the help guys... yea dont listen to audi, they will just try to bull**** you, squealing may be normal, but not that loud, thats just plain ridiculous... They did my front two, then called me to tell me that my rear brakes were also squealing, and they wanted to charge me another 450. I asked them if they were serious, y would i just want half of my brakes done, so that i can come back in 2 weeks, to do the same to my rear brakes... I told them to do it and that i wouldnt pay for it... they did the back, then called me telling me there was still more squealing from the back and that they were going to replace the pads, free of charge, so i said fine. Then they tell me there is still squealing in the front, and that they have to replace the front pads. i get a call the next day telling me they brought the wrong pads, and that they are on back order, and that they have to come from Germany. I said Fu*k it give me my car and order the pads...
exactly same happened to me, audi ended up changing all pads and front discs(no charge after complaint to uk director of audi) been fine since but i swear i heard it the other day!

the thing that pisses me off the most, is the fact that this thread has highlighted that this is a common problem, yet audi pretend these problems are isolated to their customers. yes its a new design of car, yes there will be teething problems, but for god sake audi take responsibility for them and sort them out!

Typical dealer foot dragging.

To be fair, the stock pads are quite close to a track pad - so noise is to somehwat be expected.
For me, chamfering the edges sure helps with the noise.

What is the best solution? take it in an d hope the dealer can fix it? Mine started squealing on day 2, now with 200+ miles, it sill squeal at low speed braking.

brake squeaks will never be fixed. i have given up. I just play my favorite music to cover up the noise.

When people see such a fancy car squeaking up to the red light, I don't get embarrassed. I assume Audi should be embarrassed for not having a solid solution.

The dealers are "factory trained" to make us obey everything they say.

Just my opinion :)

What is the best solution? take it in an d hope the dealer can fix it? Mine started squealing on day 2, now with 200+ miles, it sill squeal at low speed braking.

This has been a recurring theme in the forum. I can report that, after having the same very loud squealing when the car was new (Dec 2007 when the weather was very cold) the problem completely disappeared after a few hundred miles. I have noticed it again occasionally since the weather got cold again but only the first couple of times I brake on a cold morning. Unfortunately the weather has been so bad (lots of snow) this winter that I have not driven it much for the last four weeks :(

i have 7500 miles on my r8 and its recently started to squeal, but lately its really bad, so bad im afraid to even hit the brakes. I brought it to Audi service to check it out, they called me back telling me that brake squealing is normal on high performance car, but our Aston, m6,targa, ferrari, and mclaren, have not had any brake squeal, now both the ferrari and the mclaren both have carbon/ceramic brakes, so i dont know if that changes anything. then they tell me the brakes my have glazing and that they are going to charge me 500 for that, because i have had the car for more than 6 months, so the warranty has worn out, really?. and just now, i get anther call saying that they did the front brakes, but there is also some squealing in the back, and thats going to be another 500, wtf. and he also tells me that the squealing will never truly go away... is this normal, or are they just trying to milk me for money without really doing ****... thank u for ur help

this is normal...

There IS the "file a chamfer on the trailing and leading edge" solution.
It is what *I* would do -

FUNNY STORY (now!)

I brought my wife along to pick up the car & the brakes were dragging/squeaking as we pulled away from the dealer! I told here it was perfectly normal until everything seats up but she insisted on going back & having someone look at it. The sales person got in, took her out (and my wife), did a few hard stops and it was gone. 460 miles now with no further incidents.

FUNNY STORY (now!)

I brought my wife along to pick up the car & the brakes were dragging/squeaking as we pulled away from the dealer! I told here it was perfectly normal until everything seats up but she insisted on going back & having someone look at it. The sales person got in, took her out (and my wife), did a few hard stops and it was gone. 460 miles now with no further incidents.

hmmm... should i try that too, just slam on the break in the parking lot?

it tends to go away as it heats up

Typically the noise goes away after a track day or some hard use.
Then it returns.

Popping in late here, but I have some very mild chirp at low speeds until the brakes warm up, after which they are silent.

650 ish miles now. More coming as soon as the weather improves (rain, rain, go away ...).

After 900 km they are silent. They were obnoxious before that.

Mine went silent at 2500 miles and have been quiet since except for occasional first stops on a cold morning.

:DThank goodness ,no brake squeel. I let the tranny slow me down for the most part with an occasional panic braking!! The wheels are just so darn hard to keep clean!!! I follow my display instructions and put her in reverse as asked on shutdown.Even thogh garage is flat and level.Different story for track racing and choosing best line etc. someday I will be on the track and use all of the road.Till then I just stay in the middle of my lane!!