About to pull trigger on brake job, but still have a question

[RDL K9]

I need new brakes and rotors. I have been reading here and on the web and man there is lot of info, but I'm still a little stuck.

I live near Seattle, lots of rain part of the year, drought the rest. When it does rain it rains.

I plan on getting a set of Cryo'd rotors for the front, still debating the back. Am I better off getting slotted or drilled? Rain and commuting in the rain, not racing is my main use. But I still have to stop the car from triple digits upon occasion.

The pads. The car is my daily drive and while I do like to go fast it will never see a track unless I buy another one and dedicate this one for fun only. That said I'm still not sure what pad to buy. The reds seem to eat rotors for lunch, but the yellows need to warm up to stop. I doubt I'll have the chance to do that on a daily commute and I need the car to stop. I have a hellish commute (which the car makes bearable) and drive by at least three accidents a week, sometime a lot more. Other brands of pads seem to follow the same pattern.

Will the cryo'd rotors hold up to the reds or should I still look at yellows or hawks in the same class. I've also read the reds flat out break and crumble when they fail.

Bottom line i guess is will the cryo'd rotors stand up to the reds or should I just go ahead and get the yellows or some similar type of pad so I'm not spending huge money on rotors because of my pads.

Thanks in advance for any advice. Sorry if this has been beat to death, feel free to link to a thread I missed that covers this.

Michael

[Other_Erik]

Personal Opinion time, because I don't want to start another "which XXXXXX is better?" jihad

Daily driving, with occasional "spirited" driving/stopping, I would go with the following:

Pads: Hawk Performance Ceramic - best bang for the buck balancing stopping power (8/10 among street pads), noise (1/10), and dust (3/10)
Rotors: Options, options, options
If you've got the spare cashola laying around, OEM rotors with the extra step of cryo treatment will last you 50k+ miles
At around half the price, JHM makes some better-than-OE quality rotors, but you may have to wait for them to get their production run number before they'll deliver a set. Small negative side effect is they use less actual rotor surface material (thinner wall), so you're likely to only get 35-40k miles out of the front rotors
If you don't mind cheaping out, you can get Zimmerman rotors for about $230/ea, but your spirited braking will suffer. They use a flat one-piece design that will hold up to many many miles of daily driving, but are useless at shedding heat. Would only recommend them for the rears, and that only if you don't care that the look of the rears don't match the fronts.

Quick tip if you're planning to do the brake job yourself - give yourself all day, take your time, and make ABSOLUTELY SURE you have all the necessary tools and such before you start - I ended up 6 hours and 3 trips to the parts store to do a full pad replacement (well, one of those trips was returning the rented caliper tool) - the rear calipers are the odd kind that the piston has to be rotated as it's pressed in. Make sure you have/use the anti-squeak shims when you mount the pads, and check your caliper slides for proper lubrication. If you're going to go all-out to take all day and do it right, it's the perfect time to switch over to Full DOT-4 for higher fluid boil temperature, but you have to flush out every last bit of the old stuff. Stainless steel lines are pretty and functional, but I can't speak to the particular brand of pain in the ass of replacing brake hoses on the RS, can only say that every time I've done that on another car, there was much swearing involved.

And once again, I've answered a simple question with a wall o' text. Oh well, at least you can't say that I'm not thorough :)

O_E

[MaxRS6]

..
And once again, I've answered a simple question with a wall o' text. Oh well, at least you can't say that I'm not thorough :)
O_E

I was thinking as I was reading "Wow- that is a thorough answer" and then I read upon your last line- +1 ;0

[as350]

I run EBC Yellows all around and they perform well. Not much dust, not much squeal, good bite and modulation.

[Jimmy]

Posi Centric ceramics are also nice IMO on the RS6...also not much dust and no squeal.

There is a OE solid , vented rotor for the RS6 as well for a few bucks less than the drilled versions.

[RDL K9]

Wow, thanks for the reply.. That was very helpful and detailed. Just what I needed.

I'm not the most mechanically inclined (Patience issues) so a reality check is well received. I can break into almost any building, network, or person and will work the meanest dog I can get my hands on, but I struggle with little clippy things, bulbs and screws and such. A failing I need to work on if I want to afford this car.

I've done other brake jobs on other regular cars and trucks. Is it that much harder or about the same with a couple nuances. I think I can handle that. I should video the whole affair so I can post it, warts and all.

Thanks again for the thorough reply. And I was going to flush the fluid. Now I AM going to flush the fluid. It would be silly not to.

Miichael

[ben916]

Are you doing the brakes yourself?
if you have the space and jack stands, it is a piece of cake.

i was the guinea pigeon the frozen front rotors with reds: took 600 miles before squeals stopped and a few 130mph-60mph moderate braking.

skip the reds and go with hawks.

flushing the fluid is LONG and drawn out non patient process...

[4everRS]

Bleeding is not that bad. Get a turkey baster to get old fluids out of the reservoir, get a motive power bleeder, and crack the bleeders, rear first.

[marklar182]

Reds are no longer recommended for our cars IMO. They leave too much pad material on the rotors.

[bakes]

I've just put cryo'd rotors on the front of my car with hawk ceramics. only been running them a week but no issues to report. I'll be posting pictures of them later tonight. I ended up buying rotors right from frozen rotors as they reduced their price to come close to the rotor cost I'd found on parts geek.com.

I also had the rotors spray painted with a rust treatment and you'll see that in my pictures.

[bakes]

15193
15194
15195

these are from frozen rotors

[hahnmgh63]

Second, third and all of what they said. I run the Yellows on my RS and my Cayenne Turbo S and am happy with them but as they said, stay away from the Reds, their a cheap OEM commuter car replacement. Not for a high performance heavy car. Also a second on the Motive power bleeder, a must for any garage. Makes bleeding the brakes easy. Where in the Seattle area? I'm down by Eatonville.
P.S. Also, I haven't found the need to heat the Yellows up for stopping power.

[ben916]

15193
15194
15195

these are from frozen rotors

If you 6 speed your car, can I be first in line to purchase it???

[bakes]

If you 6 speed your car, can I be first in line to purchase it???

Ha ha! You'll have to get in line behind my son! While it's not in my radar at all for this car it may be something I consider once enough people have sorted out the teething issues and a decent, stable package is available.

[G2]

Thought I'd cut and snip a bit:

Am I better off getting slotted or drilled?
-- Slotted rotors will typically be noisy. OEM is drilled, as most Euro manufacturers use on their sport models. Real race cars don't use drilled rotors due to cracking or excessive heat stressing.


The reds seem to eat rotors for lunch, but the yellows need to warm up to stop.

-- EBC Red pads are meant for low power lighter cars (see EBC website). The Yellow pads work GREAT when cold, even freezing cold. Very consistent friction across the temperature range, but get even better when warm to hot. Far better than OE (crap).

Will the cryo'd rotors hold up to the reds or should I still look at yellows or hawks in the same class. I've also read the reds flat out break and crumble when they fail.

-- Perhaps, but why risk a known potential issue (due to incompatibility on a "how used" level). I'm sure any pad would or could physically fail in the "right" cicumstances. Better to use an appropriate compound and avoid mayhem....

Bottom line i guess is will the cryo'd rotors stand up to the reds or should I just go ahead and get the yellows or some similar type of pad so I'm not spending huge money on rotors because of my pads.

--- Yellowstuff pads are rotor friendly for being Aramid/Kevlar composition. My truck made it nearly 100K on Yellows and GD slotted rotors.

Thanks in advance for any advice. Sorry if this has been beat to death, feel free to link to a thread I missed that covers this.

-- Yes, it's been covered a lot on this forum. Always fun to talk about it more: I've been happy with my second set of Yellows even in torrential rain here in Eugene, and snow so deep I had to park it (lowered). Pads were fine in any weather so far. But then again I also sell EBC and have used them on all sorts of vehicles, since '03. Might make me biased, but the cost to performance ratio really appeals. The few problems we've had we're minor, but again have done about 20 customer cars in the last few years. As of today ordering a full EBC set (Yellows and GD rotors w/SS lines) for a '09 Pontiac G8 GT (26k miles) to head up performance upgrades (I am replacing heads, cam, full exhaust) that'll make it faster. Now both his nice vehicles will have matching brakes.

There's lots of great products out there, and EBC is just one. I especially like European made stuff that doesn't brake/break the bank ;-)

-------------



Michael

Best of luck, as we need all the brakes possible on these beasts.

[RDL K9]

Thanks everyone. I went with the drilled rotors right from Diversified Cryogenics as they were about the same price and already cryo'd so no extra shipping. For Pads I bought the Hawks HPS Ceramics. Just the fronts so far, backs come on the next paycheck.
I really appreciate the advice as I now have upgraded rotors and pads for half the cost of the dealer. Between this and the gas tank replacement savings (NTSB recall baby) I may get that chip after all some day.
I'll tackle the brakes this weekend along with the stupid resistors for my LED tail lights. Hopefully the car will stop, look pretty and stop giving me the freaking error message. I'll try to take some pics.
Thanks again for all of the solid advice and time you took to give it. ( Other_Erik and Gary this means you)
BTW, I live in North Bend, but work in Olympia so I would love to meet up with someone local and talk RS ideas. I love my car and I want to have fun with it. More important I really need to learn to work on the dang thing so I can afford it. Summer's coming so those vents you guys are all cutting in are looking interesting.
Michael

[hahnmgh63]

That's a long drive from Olympia to N. Bend, you do that everyday? I'm not too far out of the way. I work at JBLM (McChord AFB).

[RDL K9]

4 days a week. The ride can be tough some days, but that is why I bought the car. Makes the ride bearable. I drive by the base M-Thur and I work dogs occasionally for for the 275th Ranger's on Fridays. We'll have to grab lunch or a beer after work one day.

[Styhl]

so glad i found this thread!

[G2]

Michael, glad to put in my 3 cents. I'm full of opinions :)

we're putting together a gathering here in Eugene soon. Be great to meet you and any others that would like to partake. Check out the events category. Good cheap hotels for the distance challenged.

Happy Braking

[RDL K9]

I finally was home for a day and got the brakes done. It was not hard at all and only took about 35 minutes a side. All I can say is wow what a difference. I have a bad computer and it throws me an ABS error that I have as my next fix. I'm going to park it for now until that fix is done, as if I have to slam on the brakes (Ft Lewis is not my friend at 17:00) I get the feeling I could flat spot my new tires in seconds. Can't wait till that's fixed as it also turns off the anti-speeding ticket device - cruise control. I really want that back.

Thanks for all the help in choosing the rotors and pads as well as the DIY help. You guys rock.

After the computer is all fun stuff like paint, summer tires/rims, exhaust, new lights.... man I love this car.

Michael

[4everRS]

Congrats on getting the brake job done.

Are you sure that the computer is causing your abs issues? It could also be the wheel speed sensors. Just a thought

[Other_Erik]

Congrats, and glad my advice was of some assistance to you :) Get your ABS fixed and you'll notice a marked improvement in hard braking. I only say take all day because I'm very slow and deliberate when working on vehicles - looking right now at probably a full weekend job to rip all the old hacked up wiring out of my jeep and replacing with factory salvage yard harnesses... what fun!