Brakes @ 29K??
 

I do a lot of highway miles for work and have put 29K on my 2018 A5 SB I bought new last November. My previous vehicle was a 2012 VW CC, which I put 120K miles on before the brakes needed to be replaced! Dealer said they had never seen such mileage on the original brakes before... The brakes (driver-side front it seems) on my A5 started "pulsing" last week (not sure if that's the right terminology, but I can feel and hear a rubbing sound that appears tied to wheel rotation when applying the brakes). I called my Audi dealer and they said I could need new brakes already?? I find that hard to believe based on how I drive, but I am bringing it in on Friday for service.

Just curious if anyone else has had any brake issues (mechanical or premature wear) on their A5?

In my previous cars, I would usually get about 60-70k on a set of brake pads, but it depends on a many factors (two of which being driving style and brake pad material). 120k miles is unheard of, so you lucked out if you got that many miles on your VW. 29k seems a bit low IMHO, so will be curious what you find when you take to the dealer.

Oh, and for pulsing, I wonder if you have uneven wear on the pads, which shouldn't happen.

On my previous S4 (B8) I went 110,000 miles before I needed to replace the brakes. Like you my commute was mainly highway miles. That car had a DSG transmission which allowed more engine braking than the ZF auto, but not as much as the manual transmission I had in my B7 S4. I traded that car in with 120,000 miles and the original brakes.

Your dealer will measure pad wear at your 30k service, so you will know for sure.

You might have a warped rotor, have you ever got water on the rotor when the brakes are really hot? BTW, warped rotors might not be cover under warranty.

I would re-bed the pads in. Pulsing on these cars, with the newer compounds being used, tends to mean you aren't on the brakes quite hard enough to burn off deposits

from Stoptech

For a typical performance brake system using street-performance pads, a series of ten partial braking events, from 60mph down to 10mph, will typically raise the temperature of the brake components sufficiently to be considered one bed-in set. Each of the ten partial braking events should achieve moderate-to-high deceleration (about 80 to 90% of the deceleration required to lock up the brakes and/or to engage the ABS), and they should be made one after the other, without allowing the brakes to cool in between.

Depending on the make-up of the pad material, the brake friction will seem to gain slightly in performance, and will then lose or fade somewhat by around the fifth stop (also about the time that a friction smell will be detectable in the passenger compartment). This does not indicate that the brakes are bedded-in. This phenomenon is known as a green fade, as it is characteristic of immature or ‘green' pads, in which the resins still need to be driven out of the pad material, at the point where the pads meet the rotors. In this circumstance, the upper temperature limit of the friction material will not yet have been reached.

As when bedding-in any set of brakes, care should be taken regarding the longer stopping distance necessary with incompletely bedded pads. This first set of stops in the bed-in process is only complete when all ten stops have been performed - not before. The system should then be allowed to cool, by driving the vehicle at the highest safe speed for the circumstances, without bringing it to a complete stop with the brakes still applied. After cooling the vehicle, a second set of ten partial braking events should be performed, followed by another cooling exercise. In some situations, a third set is beneficial, but two are normally sufficient.

Update
 

I appreciate everyone's responses today! Again, I drive ~35K miles/year and have been driving since the early 80's... So, I am going to make this observation I made today about this issues that does not make any sense to me right now: SO far, this issue has only happened on wet roads during rain... Thoughts?

Hi NJspeedfreak

Thanks for sharing! Yea, I got my motorcycle license 2 years before my auto license and have been into engine-braking ever since ;-) Seriously though, I do not tailgate and often use the pedals to downshift, so I really only use my brakes for unexpected or minimal stops...

On a different note. Anyone else's brakes squeal? It just started getting cooler and I had my windows down and they squeal as I come to a stop. 7500 miles.