Zoich

Hello. I trid to do an archive search, but couldn't seem to find enough & consistent information.
My car (Jan 05, last year of the B6)is a 1.8 Quattro Special Edition car. It recently reached 45,000 miles and I took the car in for a regular schedule service. The advisor told me the rear brake pads are low again with about 5000 miles life left. I almost couldn't believe it. I looked at the front ones -- the thickness of the pads look like they are almost brand new! Does this cause for an alarm? The rear pads were replaced at 26,000 miles, so it is probably ready for it's second set. But the front ones are still very good. Why is all the stopping power going towards the back? My BMW is just the opposite, the front ones would go out around 25,000 and replace both front and back at 50,000. What are your experience? The advisor said he's seen a handful of cars like that, even though it's not normal, but he says even if he were to diagnose the problem, he probably wouldn't find anything.

javanator

be related to ESP. Dunno.

Not uncommon, has happened to others as well.

My rears wore down faster than the fronts also, but with the added bonus of having one rear side wear faster than the other. Don't know if it was ESP, e-brake use, or caliper piston sticking a little. I use my e-brake sparingly now, whereas I used to use it every time car was parked.

<a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/a4gen2/msgs/1104613.phtml" target="_new">Clicky</a>

Car brakes fine, no pull of any kind, but check rear side-to-side pad wear occasionally now.

Zoich

I assume the caliper bracket will need to be changed to accomodate larger diameter. Obviously need to have bigger pads too to cover larger surface.
For those who have done this modification, were you able to tell the difference? This is the wife's daily driver. BTW, during ~ 1 inch of snow on the ground this winter, I almost couldn't stop her car. Probably is due to the 17in sports wheels and the Bridgestone tires... thought they were good. So will bigger brakes helped in that situation?

javanator

Hope others chime in who are in the know more about brakes and upgrade options on our cars. But I would think that putting bigger brakes on the back might negatively change the brake bias if you don't upgrade the fronts first.

Upgrading the rears is not that much cheaper then upgrading the fronts.

Most of your braking is still done by the fronts, regardless of the wear you are seeing. Wonder if the front pads are a different compound then the backs. Maybe the fronts were changed out with a harder compound and the rears are still the original soft and dusty OEM pads.

Zoich

I figure since I am outside of the free maintenance period, I will do the brake job myself, have done so to my previous cars. Right now just trying for figure out the best bang for the buck. Perhaps I am over thinking. My wife works less than a mile away since we moved a year ago -- yes, she should walk. We only take her car on weeekends or long trips since my e70 X5 4.8 get 13.5 miles to the gallon... So may be stock is just fine.

Murph

Most cars go thru fronts faster than rears. Are you stating that Audi calibrates for rear bias?

GDawgA4

30k miles, 60k miles and 95k miles. I'm only on my 2nd set of front pads. The first set was replaced at 68k with pad left but wanted to upgrade the brakes. The fronts could have gone a bit longer.

I've heard the cause of the rears wearing out faster is due to ESP and being more active in the rear. Is there any truth to this? Who knows.

nanotech

Your wear seems extreme but not impossible

s4master1

Is normal, wear is caused by the traction control system applying brake pressure on turns even if you not touching the pedal
If you make a sharp right turn the traction control unit will apply pressure to the right rear caliper to help the car turn faster
Is always correcting steering using brake pressure