Darius800869

I purchased my RS5 brand new in January. from the inception of driving the dar I realized the breaks are not meant for the power of the car. I found out today the dealership stated my front and rear pads are worn out? How is this possible at 12,000 miles ? I am a very conservative drive, never took my car to the the tracks, and rarely drive up or down a steep hill. Is this a lemon law issue or simply do the RS5's cost an arm and a leg to maintain. My Porsche never ad these problems. Any advice from experts would be greatly appreciated.

superswiss

How did you come to the conclusion, that the brakes are not adequate if you are a conservative driver? Something is not right here. 12,000 miles is too soon. I got double that with aggressive driving. While I am on aftermarket rotors and pads now, the OEM brakes performed very well on my 4 week European Delivery trip with obligatory visit to the Nürburgring and lots of canyon carving once stateside. This is a 4000 lbs performance car, so it will eat brakes if you drive it like it's meant to, but there is something else going on here. With conservative daily driving you should get a lot more miles. BTW the R55 has front and rear brake sensors. Did they go off?

Darius800869

The sensors have never gone off . The dealership is even stating the rotor has a minor wear on it as well. My driving is extremely conservative. I drive the car on the streets at 35 to 50 mph, and have only opened it up a couple times on the road to Vegas.

eric strauss

… 100+ mile loops with fast straights and heavy breaking, corner after corner. My wife drives too - her 2014 S4… here are our tire and break wear data so far:

RS5: new tires at 11K, pads and rotors replaced under warrantee at 12K (warped rotors)

S4: new tires at 8K, front pads and rotors at 14K (sensors squealing) and second set of tires at 16K

The RS5 brakes are stout and I have never felt them to be weak under hard load - very little fade, even with hard use in hot weather. IF you feel your brakes are substandard, then something is very wrong. Given your light driving, it is possible that the brakes have never really bedded in.

Keep us posted…

Eric

superswiss

Yeah, that doesn't add up unless you are constantly riding the brakes. Some RS5 are affected by brake vibration that develops early on. It's still rather unclear what exactly is causing it. That's what Eric above and others suffered from. At one point Audi stated that the rotors were getting damaged during shipment to the factory. But in your case you are just seeing worn pads after 12k miles. Brake wear heavily depends on driving style, so without specifically knowing how you drive, it's gonna be very hard to say why you are experiencing premature brake pad wear. There are plenty of folks who drive these cars hard, that includes Eric and myself. I pretty much go through a set of tires in less than a year just like Eric. I just replaced mine yesterday. They only lasted 8 months and about 12-13k miles. The OEM brakes as I said are quite capable, but not quite enough for regular track use, so most go aftermarket with the rotors and pads for the track or they went with the ceramic brakes in the first place, but for performance street driving like canyon carving, they are very capable. For daily driving at 35 to 50 mph, never doing any high speed braking etc. they are overkill and driven properly they should last a long time. I just felt I wanted a bit of an upgrade after the OE brakes were worn, so I went aftermarket and I was kinda hesitant with these documented rotor warp issues to get another set of OEM pads and rotors.

superswiss

I don't think this point gets enough attention among RS5 owners. Performance brakes are meant to get hot to perform at their best. You really need to get some decent heat into them, so you are laying down a good layer of pad material on the rotor. If you are driving around like a grandma, you never get enough heat into the brakes and they constantly operate in abrasive mode, leading to substandard performance.

Here's a good video on conditioning the brakes properly.

eric strauss

Even my wife's S4 gets a slight brake squeal from her stop and go commutes during the week. After the first ten miles up in the canyons the brakes are quiet again :-)

Are you happy with the upgraded brakes on your RS5? My assumption is that Audi will NOT cover my next set of pads and rotors so I am eager to look at the aftermarket. So many choices, but so easy to upset the braking balance or end up with grabby brakes.

I see you have the Tru-Float rotors from ECS - have they worked well for you...

Best

Eric

superswiss

I'm very happy with the ECS rotors and Hawk Pads all-around. I also put on stainless steel brake lines in the front and I'm using Torque RT700 fluid. Just got it flushed yesterday. Racing fluid absorbs more water and needs to be flushed annually instead of every other year, so that's the only thing to keep in mind. Compared to OEM, the brake balance is improved and brake application is much more linear, easier to modulate and more consistent. I found the OEM setup to have a bit of a hockey stick response. The new setup not only improved the car during hard driving, but also in mundane situations. For example, the adaptive cruise control is much smoother now. The OEM brakes are actually a bit grabby which leads to a bit of a jarring experience with ACC or driving at slower speeds in general.

eric strauss

.. can you post a shot of your RS5 with those wheel spacers... I bet it sets a great stance..

Eric

superswiss

I don't think I'm doing it justice. These are all cell phone pics. The stance is pretty awesome in person. It also improved handling. The 30 mm wider front track does wonders around corners. I also included a close up of the new rotors.