Replace pads *and* rotors?
 

Not Boxster related but I figured you guys would know.

A friend of mine took his Tuareg in to have his brake pads replaced (light came on). The car has 40,000km on it. The dealership told him that he has to replace all four sets *and* the rotors. They say they are designed this way. Replace the pads.. replace the rotors too. No exceptions.

Is this true? A load of crap? They want to charge him $1700 CDN. I've never heard of such a thing.

Hi,

If the Discs are cross-drilled, these cannot be machined. with only 40k km, they shouldn't be below the wear limit, but they cannot be turned true, so replacement would be warranted...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

That was my first thought. But they're not cross-drilled. And what's more the dealership didn't say that they were worn.. but that they simply *had* to be replaced at the same time as the pads because that's how they were designed.

Hi,

Never heard of that... sounds like some Bill padding to me. Have your friend look up the wear limits for the discs...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Excellent. Thanks Jim. I'm going to do more digging. I just wanted to find out if there was any truth at all to this.

Cross drilled can be machined, but that doesn't matter in this case either way. The only time you need to replace the discs is when they are below the minimum thickness - the hats should have a measurement of what the minimum thickness is, and you can check the thickness with a caliper. If they are heavily pitted, with a significant lip on the edges of the rotors, they need replacement. Normally street pads over 40,000 km wouldn't need to be replaced just yet...

Hi,

Cross-drilled Discs can be machined, but it's not advisable. The potential for cracking is too great once additional material is taken away.

Many shops simply won't do it. This is because the Discs can crack on the Lathe, or it damages the Blade, or the shop simply doesn't want to assume the liability. Personally, I would never have them machined, their integrity cannot be assured after that, and they're a fairly important part - too important to have them fail...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Easy to find out.

If they are solid, they use a micrometer to check the thickness and for warp.

If thick and true, lathe away.

However, Porsche dealer won't work with you like this in my experience. Need a good indy break guy who isn't trying to gouge.

Good luck.

I have never heard of any "regular" cars where the brakes were designed in this way. If the pads wore out too much they might have damaged the disk but this is next to impossible on all 4 sides. I think the dealer is trying to hose your friend. Get a second opinion. It is as simple as calling another dealer and asking them what is involved in the process.

-aren

Perhaps more lore.. perhaps true.. somewhat related maybe?

I read recently in Autoweek.. maybe up to 2 months ago, that many of the German manufacturers (BMW was the example) use both "soft pads" and "soft rotors" to improve brake performance and feel. The cost of which is more frequent replacement. Then again, BMW covers "everything" for the 1st 50K miles, so you might not even notice untill its out of coverage just what gets replaced.

Now, does VW do this on the T-EGG? not sure. As mentioned, the best way is to measure the rotors and determine if they are indeed out of spec and in need of replacement.

The T-Egg is close to 5,000lbs correct? 40,000 kms = 25,000 miles. While I could understand the Pads needing replacement, the rotor part would worry me.

Same thing happened to me with my Jaguar xtype. Dealer quoted me $1200, saying that the rotors need to be replaced with the pads. Took it to a shop that we have our work vehicles maintained at, they checked thickness, condition, etc and said no way, replaced the pads for $380 with labor.