heynowbababooey

Great ride. Only complaint, the brakes. It took all my force in my leg and foot to press down on the pedal and even so I had to press even harder for the car to come close to stopping. I have a 528xi and I barely tap on the break and the car comes to a complete stop. Really turned me off from buying it today as I have sciatica and there is absolutely no way I could brake in this car without pain shooting down my leg every time because of having to really push down hard. Thinking about looking at an 18’ S6, maybe the breaking will be better? Has anyone noticed this problem before in their A6?

TechCom-Mike

Compared to two prior 335i's I'd say a slightly softer pedal feel and a bit more travel to come to a dead stop so I guess in total I'm pushing a bit further (the experience doesn't actually feel like harder per se but I suppose further = harder?). This is for 2015 3.0T sport on 20" wheels whether that has much to do with it, not having driven 2.0T.

dbintegrity

My 2018 S6 and my old (2014) A6 both had exceptional braking...

Acuransx

I run a /15 A6 3.0T Premium Plus. I am not a fan of the pedal feel of the A6 when compared to most other cars including my 04 Acura TL, /94 NSX and wife's /13 Volvo S80 T6. I fully understand where the OP is coming from. The A6 brakes may stop the car in same or shorter distance than other cars but the feel is not at all confidence inspiring as a pretty good push is needed and the brakes lack the initial bite that BMWs and many other cars typically exhibit. The brakes in my (some would say lowly -- I would quite disagree from a reliability and pleasant ownership experience perspective) /04 TL have better bite and pedal feel than the A6.

Never mind pedal feel. So many of us on this board have experience premature rotor warping (my rears went first at 8500 miles and fronts not far behind at 11,500 miles -- driven responsibly with no track time or other nonsense) and Audi's griping about pad/rotor replacement if car has north of 12,000 miles I have to wonder..........

Best,
Jeff

heynowbababooey

superswiss

Many cars have non-linear brakes. High initial bite, but then don't have much more to give if you push harder. Manufacturers have found that for some strange reason a lot of people are afraid of stepping on the brakes hard in an emergency. So besides making them bite more sooner, they've also added systems that detect if the driver performs an emergency stop and boost the brakes to apply full pressure in behalf of the driver. Audi tends to have more linear brakes overall. One big exception is the A3 platform which for my taste has brakes that are way too sensitive. But most other models have more linear brake application which I personally prefer, because it makes it possible to properly modulate the brakes. I can't quite recall the brake feel of the A6. It's been a while since I drove one, but I don't remember it not being confidence inspiring for an A model. It's all relative I suppose. An S6 has better brakes and an RS7 even better, but they are still generally more linear. I definitely know what you are talking about. I changed to Audi from BMW over 10 years ago now and I had to get used to the more linear brakes back then, but in the meantime it's what I prefer.

dudley@07726

Q5 Bob

Looking at C&D braking tests the A6 is more than competitive in stopping distance. Here are the 70-0 stopping distances:

MB E300 154ft.
A6 159ft.
Volvo S90 161ft.
BMW 540i 169ft.
Genesis G80 188 Ft.(!)

uberwgn

Side effect of ceramic pads. Extremely high pedal effort to stop the car. Our '15 Q5 is the same. I changed pads in it. Problem solved.

Acuransx

I intend to adopt Uber's solution when I need to do front brakes on my car. I too am confident that car will stop when needed -- its more an issue of feel than anything else. And to be clear, it is not like driving a car without power assisted brakes -- just lacks initial bite. I know exactly what the 5 series BMW brakes feel like and while I don't necessarily need that much pre-loading, shall we say, I would like a bit more initial bite from the A6 brakes. Not a deal killer for me but if I can have my preference addressed in manner Uber mentions that will make a very nice car even nicer. Uber, what pads did you go with in your Q5?

Best,
Jeff