DutchDoofus

Imagine the irony. I noticed that the car sometimes pulled to the left slightly when braking hard for the last few weeks.
So brake-wise, something was obviously wrong on the left side of the car.
I therefore started searching for an address that could do a good job of overhauling my front-calipers. I don't trust myself with that job.

I think the front-left caliper "felt" the imminent overhaul or replacement and decided to screw his boss.

So i'm driving along with 90mph when i have to brake hard. When releasing the brake...
...the car jolted to te left.
Steeringwheel shaking, whole car shaking, the smell of burning brakes.
WTF ???

So i pull over at the next gas-station and looked around the car. And there she glows... Rotor looking like it got raped by an icehockey-team. Outside pad looking like chocolate. Rim totally covered in 3 feet of brakedust...

Limped home, stopping from time to time allowing the left front wheel to cool down. The rim was so hot, would have given an instant 3rd degree burn...

Conclusion: one of the pistons in the left caliper jammed and froze in place, pressing the pad hard against the rotor in a kind of permanent fasion...

Got two new rotors yesterday (323x30mm, Bradi thermally treated, perforated) and two used calipers from an D2 A8 3.3 V8 TDI which are the same as my V6 TDI.
The 3.3 had only done 90000 miles before it got totalled in a crash and it's calipers looked fine. Just had to clean them but they feel solid and the sliding-action is perfectly smooth and without play. For 75 euro's a pop not a bad deal. Normally they cost a month's salary...

Waiting for the new pads to come in the mail though.
Going for a new compound of the EBC YellowStuff pad. Normally, these are race-pads but they have released a new compound (to complement the existing one) which is softer and more suitable for road-use. Cold-rotor wear, a big problem with EBC Red's, should be much less now and this new compound sees a lot if use under heavy cars in Holland like the BMW X5, Audi Q7 and so on. The Dutch highway-patrol (KLPD) uses them now too.
I made a deal with the dutch distributor to try them out under my car :-)