milo337

crester

I have the adaptive suspension on my TT-RS and am very happy with my choice. I drove the fixed suspension TT-RS and while it wasn't ridiculously stiff it was noticeably stiffer than the adaptive suspension. My biggest beef with it was that it didn't seem to handle bumps well... it made it feel like the suspension travel was too short and just made the car feel weird over bumps. I like how the adaptive suspension can be stiff when you want it to be... or more relaxed when roads are bad.

J. Patterson

crester

Just to clarify as well... the reason people use steel rotors on track is just for cost reasons. If you wear your brakes a lot then steel rotors will be cheaper to replace. That's the only reason.

When it comes to performance... carbon ceramic is better. There's a reason all the high levels of motorsport use them.

farmerjones

Almost the ENTIRE reason for CC brakes is their ability to absorb and shed heat without a decrease in performance or wear. No manufacturer would ever say a steel brake setup offers better performance than CC brakes...it's the entire point. The fact that there RS cars on the MQB platform perform horribly is unacceptable and shows they were engineered to a price point. And now Audi yanked them from the order sheet because of their horrible performance. CC are pricey, sometimes grabby till warmed up and can have odd noise issues, all normal day driving scenarios. On the track, CC should we unstoppable. Just try and find another review where CC brakes were called our for poor performance.

ormandj

I'm not sure if you're intentionally misreading what people are posting, or if you're just having a different discussion. It seems more like the latter. I've stayed aside for a while hoping you'd cool down on this topic. This will be my last post on this subject as it's already been covered quite clearly by other posters and I've got zero desire to debate facts

You'll see multiple people posted exactly what I did - track rats don't run CC. I'll quote myself: "The price/performance isn't there." I am not claiming CC brakes aren't better in some ways. Just that they do not make sense for someone not actively competing at a high level in motorsports. Let be 100% clear here on a few points:

1) CC brakes are very expensive, and they do not last forever on the track. It is not cost effective to run them unless you are competing and a LOT of money is involved. See points below.

2) The performance advantage is not some massive/huge thing like you seem to think. When you get into ultra-expensive terrirtory like the F1 cars, the brakes are carbon carbon; it is NOT the same brake as you are getting on any normal road car with carbon ceramic. Yes, carbon ceramic brakes have advantages, especially in weight. There are some braking advantages too. But it's not a 100% or even 50% better proposition, neither due to reduced weight or improved braking performance. It is relatively slight and comes at great cost.

3) Ceramic brakes can be easily damaged, it happens all the time. One stone on a track and you've got a chip in your rotor. For a racing team, this might be worth the cost, for normal people the thousands and the many thousands of dollars these things cost is prohibitive to use at the track.

4) They make great street rotors. Low brake dust is one of the biggest things going for them. Pad life is sometimes better but at the end if the day the pads are still organic. Just hope you don't get hit by a rock!

One of the above posters called it out, folks who track cars swap to iron rotors. It's just too expensive to run anything else for a performance advantage that is very minimal, and in fact non-existent when comparing stock carbon ceramic to aftermarket iron which are better engineered.

I am not suggesting Audi shouldn't improve their CC setup, just that really don't make sense for the vast majority of people on the track. I hope we can be friends now.

HalifaxMKIIITTRS

Hey All.

I am the poster mentioned having CC brakes and taking to the track for 1-day, feeling some pulsations and a noise in the brakes on the way home, taking it into Audi and being told the brakes were cooked and need to be entirely replaced-about $15,000 CDN just for the parts.

When I looked at the brakes and how the dust shield and rads in the front of the wheel well are set-up, it is clear that there is inadequate venting and cooling for the them in the TTRS. Further, Audi Canada (my dealer affiliation) has removed CC brakes as an option on current and future orders of TTRS' and RS3's —clearly an indication that they recognize an issue with the CCB's on these cars.

I am now 3 months+ into trying to get Audi Canada to deal with my situation and now have my local Audi dealer working inner channels to help resolve my brake situation. I have lots of documentation, information and pictures from both other TTRS owners and RS3 owners with CCB's that have overheated during 1 track day. This is not a one off or uncommon issue. It is not the CCB's being defective, but rather the manner in which they are utilized in TTRS and RS3 models as the same brakes seem to work pretty well on the R8, which has significant differences in the design of the wheel well to keep the brakes cool.

If you are wondering, I am planning on replacing my CCBs with a big break kit —steel rotors and track pads—once I get some reimbursement for my damaged CCB's. When CCB's work, they have incredible stopping power—I mean hit them too hard and you're going through the from windshield stopping power.

If your interested, my thread is here: https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho...2&goto=newpost

OneOfOne

https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...tning-lap-2018

Vegas-roadster

Thanks for the update Halifax. It is amazing to me that the Mk 2 TTRS brakes had squeal and cooling issues and yet the Mk 3 designers did not pay special attention to that area. Makes you wonder how (or if) they test these cars