Hello Audi friends. My name is Pete from Cincinnati Ohio. Back in December, 2000 I purchased my current car a 90 V8 Quattro. My friend Tim actually found it for me thru a website. It was located at a dealership way up in Minneapolis Minn. I was to pay $6200 for it sight unseen and have it shipped down here for another $400. Well lo and behold winter came and all the carriers were unable to move way up north. so my car sat several days up there and the dealer one day tried to start her up and she wouldn't. he thought the starter was foul so he took her in to the dealer to have it fixed plus several other things on his ticket <oil change, put in new hood latch and motor mount>. well it turned out that there was a serious wobble in a pully. they changed it out i believe and while they were in there i asked that the timing belt be changed. well the damn snow didnt let up so i decided to hop on Comair and retrieve my car on Xmas Eve. Man that was a great day. The car looked so good in it's pearl white blending in whit the 1000 inches of snow up north. Evem with the freakin additional $900 of fix er ups I had to pay, the 7100 buck was well worth it. I was rather saddened when I finally left the dealer and popped in a tape only to have it jam. thanl gawd for my AAA card to hold up the tape so I could at least listen to eskimo music thru whatever state my Heekins tried to teach me was up west of Illinois back in 6ht grade. It was a great drive home all 600+ miles. i will not forget the car wash in chicago at 8am on christmas eve in 0 degree weather. or driving 110 mph thru north indiana w/ wind gust of 40mph cutting cross the highway. well we made it home alright and got it plates and whatnot. she was quite happy and i even took it up to a local Audi dealer to have her looked over. They said she looks great and just enjoy her. Damn i should of made those bastard write up a list of whatever. Its hard to find a good dealer on Audi's these day when they also carry Porche! Well she wobbled a little to the right. Needs a good balance and alignment. Also the damn radio has static but thats nothing major. I just need to take it out and put in a CD player. Beside the back left speaker squeeks. Had to disconnect. Had the surpentine belt replaced and also a boot. the antifreeze reservoir broke its nipple <god i hate when nipple leak!> so i got a replacement and just had the fluid changed. so anyway this is getting long. i want to let you know about this lovely car and its history with me briefly. i will post again soon with more relevant info. right now my next challenge is replacing the breaks. do i go cheap or pay the money to have it done? my quote is ove $650 of bothe front and rear pads and calipers. can i squeeze another set of pads on temporarly.
ok time to go find some food, take care friends!

"loaded" calipers, meaning complete with pads, average about $100.00 each for Audi's. Depending on local labor rates, the other $250.00 may be fair. If the calipers aren't frozen, I don't know why not just replace the pads.

Does he still have the expensive UFO's or the G60 conversion? $650 for new UFO's seems cheap to me.

If it's for the G60's then it's way to much money for pads and rotors. He probably got quoted for calipers also...?

Steve Ankney
Michigan

Steve is right if they are UFO's. I thought they started in '91, or was that just the 20v 200?

i'll go look at the estimate guys. it includes calipers. i may be off a couple dollars on the quote. i talk 'real loud' after 2 football games...

200 20V came with the UFO's. The other 200 model years including 91 200T's did not...

The V8'S got them right away in 90 and 91. Not sure if they had them in 92+...

Steve Ankney
Michigan

Ok. I HAVE DONE SOME RESEARCH ON MY BREAKS. I AM QUITE CONFIDENT I HAVE THE RETRO BRAKES ON MY CAR. REASON BEING, IF I LOOK THRU MY WHEEL I CAN SEE THE ROTOR. MY MECHANIC PRICED ME BASED ON THE ORIGINAL BRAKES. SO THAT IS WHY THEIR PRICE IS HIGH. AS A MATTER OF FACT, IT WAS MORE LIKE $900 FOR ALL FOUR! ANYWAY, MY MECHANIC HAS NOT HEARD ABOUT THIS RETRO <FAUST CALLED IT A G4?> AND HAS ASKED ME TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IT SO I CAN INSTRUCT THEM. THEY ARE A VERY RESPECTED SHOP SO DONT QUESTION THEIR KNOWLEDGE PLEASE. SO IF SOME OF YOU CAN, PLESE TELL ME ABOUT THE UFO'S AND THE G4. I AM QUITE INTERESTED IN HEARING ABOUT BOTH. I FEEL LIKE I CAN JUST HEAD INTO CAX-X OR MIDAS AND AT LEAST HAVE THEM DO AN ESTIMATE. NOT SO SURE IF I CAN SQUEEZE ANOTHER SET OF PADS ON THE ROTORS BUT MY VERY CAR SMART FRIEND SAID IF IT WAS RETROFITTED THEN ODDS ARE THE GUY WHO DID IT WAITED UNTIL THE CAR HAD 100,000 OR SO ON IT SO W/ 143K THE ROTORS STILL SHOULD HAVE SOME LIFE. MAKES PERFECT SENSE TO ME. THANKS GUYS! HAPPY DRIVING

Don't worry about anybody casting doubt on your very respected shop, most shops never even _knew_ that Audi produced a V8 Quattro. I don't trust _any_ mechanic unless they are recommended or have proven that they are skillful on Audis.

The retrofit was fitting G60 rotors and calipers from the 5K/200 series to the front of the V8, and for a while Audi would pay for the conversion (this has long since ended, though) if the customer yelled loud enough.

If yours have been retrofitted, then the shop needs to measure the thickness of the rotor and see if the rotor meets the minimum thickness after machining. Lotta folks simply replace the rotors along with the pads to avoid the possibility of warping the rotor after machining.

The pads are relatively cheap and widely available, however if you decide to do it yourself, bear in mind that the el-cheapo pads advertised by the chain parts stores are usually for the single piston G54 calipers, not the dual piston G60's. The G54's came on the normally aspirated 5k's. The way to tell the difference is to pull a front wheel and look at the back of the caliper, it will have Girling 60 or Girling 54 cast into it.

Any other questions just yell.

-Steve Jensen
87 5kcstq with G60's in the front

Just found this forum and joined. I bought the same car about 10 months ago at a car lot. it had 97K on it. I bought it for $3500. Love the car! I went ahead and replaced the front brakes myself. Hopefully, you don't have the UFO brakes. The standard disks are easy to remove and pads are easy to get. I spent $300.00 for rotors and pads. I paid full blow to the dealer for the pads because they're the only ones who provide the same electrical connection. Others will require splicing, so be careful that you don't pull the wire out of the old connection when removing.