Big or Little Reds?

[Shirish]

Hello chaps

on my way to having new tyres fitted, I hear a grating noise when braking. Wheels taken off and find i have no front pads left at all!! The calipers don't look too hot either as the dust shields were hanging loose too!

Bearing in mind i've only had the car a week and drove all the way from Manchester at motorway speeds, not terribly impressed by the garage I bought it from.

Anyway, can anyone tell me if I have big or little reds from the photos. None drilled discs suggest little reds




Also, not being the most mechanically minded, does anyone know a decent mechanic who could change the pads and possible rebuild the calipers in the London area?

Cheers

Shirish

[Corey]

Little reds.

Changing pads is not difficult, if you can take a wheel off you can change the pads. You are more than welcome to stop by (Lincoln) and I would gladly help you.

[Shirish]

thanks for the confirmation Corey!

What is it that tells you they are little reds?

With the noise they are presently making, I don't want to drive the car anywhere, but thanks for the offer!

Shirish

[Corey]

Size, ok no worries fully understand

[AAH!]

If when you or whoever changes the pads has difficulty in getting the old pads out or the new ones in your calipers may be suffering from plate lift i.e. corrosion under the stainless steel, pad guides. This can also have a bad effect on the disks.

Worth checking if you are changing your pads.

See here for an article about plate lift and how to rectify it:

http://www.arthurlea.com/Porsche/Brakes/brakes.htm

On my old calipers the plate lift was very bad and i choose to replace the calipers for new big reds rather than refurbishing the old ones.

HTH

Angus

[Shirish]

Thanks Angus, i'll look out for that.

Hmmm.... Big Red upgrade eh? :mischeif:

Thing is, the garage have to take some of the blame/cost as they sold the car with 12 months MOT. Are brake pads not checked as part of the MOT? Not sure how i'm going to play it, but would be good to do the upgrade at the same time.

Is there a list of parts I need to upgrade to Big reds?

Shirish

[Corey]

If you're going to upgrade then go with the later Monoblocks as you will elimnate the corrosion issue altogether.

[markrs2]

I replaced the standard callipers on mine with big reds and new discs and it transformed the braking on the car (but then again the old callipers were corroded under the shims). The cost of new shims and reconditioning the callipers is going to be less than buying new big reds (£500 plus VAT from VAG parts i think) but not by a great deal. If you can get some compensation from the garage (which you should try to do as they sold you an unroadworthy car, try threatening them with trading standards) then put it towards some big reds!

[alg]

Garage will play wear and tear card IMHO.
Big reds via vagparts makes sense. They source the full kit direct from Germany which reduces the Audi stealer markup.
Unless you are flush with cash a recon of the calipers is worth considering. Remove steel backplates, remove galanisation build up, new backplates and if pads move freely you should be sorted.
Mine were done and keep me going ~ 12months before Big red temptation took over. Main reason being that porsche OEM parts are easier for big reds ( e.g. no porsche pad is the same as standard RS2 calipers, clever audi). There is a detailed thread re that somewhere on the board

[scillyisles]

There's something not right about your photos. Here's a picture of my little red (rear caliper) before I upgraded to big reds.
Notice how it looks diiferent from your calipers and is positioned in a different location to yours.
In fact from the location of both calipers I would suggest that you have got big reds with non drilled discs.
Your discs look very corroded and I would guess need to have the lip corrosion skimmed off or replaced.

[Corey]

Why are you showing an image of the rear wheel though? The image at the top is the front caliper. So it will sit in a different place?

[scillyisles]

Cos I don't have an image of the front ones handy
I do however have my little red calipers in a box in the garage.

I agree that the rear ones sit in a different place - maybe it's the angle from which his photos are taken but they remind me of the "fat slug" shape of the big reds

[Shirish]

now i'm confused!!

the pics in my first post are of the NSF?

[scillyisles]

Ok just been into the garage and checked my old little red calipers in the box and the calipers on the car. I'd say that you'e got little reds - sorry for any confusion.

[Shirish]

Ok just been into the garage and checked my old little red calipers in the box and the calipers on the car. I'd say that you'e got little reds - sorry for any confusion.

Why you!!!!

Thanks for checking!