In my experience changing brake pads is fairly straightforward (fronts). The issue is when something goes wrong or doesn't want to go back the way it should

Mine is in for a clutch tomorrow. Something I'm definitely not going to attempt myself. Halfords price £450, mates garage £250

Thanks!

Not a bad price also.

£18.37 for Ultimax pads CLICKY!
£59.96 for Standard discs CLICKY!
or
£106.75 for Turbo Groove Discs CLICKY!

Apparently the Ultimax stuff is for road use and is designed to reduce noise when braking.

I'm surprised at you Prof. In my experience they're good for track use, but their road products are shocking. Ferodos are where it's at if you really must upgrade. I don't need to because my OEM bits are awesome.

Meh. I've no complaints with the Red Stuff pads I'm running at the moment. I'm not even sure if I can get Ferodo in my fitment (mind you I've never looked) - my BMW driving friend swears by them too.
What's their longevity like, and do they paint your wheels with brake dust at every given opportunity? Because I'm honestly very impressed at how little the Red Stuff pads leaves on the wheels.

One of my mates used to swap his own brakes on his Volvo. Took less than a day and he paid only for parts. Personally, I wouldn't d|ck about with brakes. Immensely important and you don't ever want to be in a situation where you wishes you had had better brakes.

Which is why I paid something like £1000 to go an R32 set up all round with Mintex pads.

Tempted to upgrade my pads next time I get a decent chance, would upgrade the discs but if memory serves correct it'd require notifying the insurance company as a 'performance' mod, and it would seem that braking quicker is a bad thing.....

Mod-friendly insurance companies don't normally charge for thigs like brake upgrades - anything "safety" related is free. Unfortunately normal companies aren't like this - look at the winter tyres fiasco.

Yep, with the brakes I'd rather have more reliable stopping if needed, but with the winter tyres.... The north had it pretty bad and I managed to get in to and from work every day, granted getting up the hill to my parents was a royal PITA (sometimes took a couple of tries to get the speed up) but I had no other issues, if the weather was bad on a regular basis in winter I'd consider getting some snow tyres on steel wheels but again switching from stock alloys to steel is probably classed as a mod too

Out of interest, was that new discs, pads and struts? There's a massive debate in the Alfa Gta world whether the originally specced 305 brembos, or the later updated 330s are better. The conversion costs a grand and there's a lot of discussion as to whether or not it's worth it.

It actually comes down to the fact that the 305s tend to warp through overheating due to poor venting than actual brake efficiency. But, apparently the 330s massively add to the unsprung weight. As is often the way with car forums, the consensus has become that bigger is better.

Calipers, discs and pads. Actually they were used but refurbed. The discs and calipers had seen around 6k of use from brand new. The whole lot were powdercoated OEM red. New pads.

You're right in that it increases the unsprung mass and hence some have compensated by going for lighter alloys, others have gone for alternatives. I really wanted Audi RS4 front set up which apparently is lighter and still fits behind OEM alloys, the latter being the limiting factor in the choice of brake setup.

Prior to the brake upgrade, I had coilovers, antirollbars, ane anti-link kit. The car was very manoeuvrable. Almost skittish. I had the set up so that when I went around a small roundabout at high speed I could induce a slight oversteer instead of the mahoosive understeer that FWD cars are renowned for.

After the brake upgrade, the steering was heavier and the car didn't feel as nimble. Still very solid and I've since adapted my driving style to the weight but I'm still getting used to the brakes. I can induce whiplash in my passengers if I'm not careful!

A grand second hand just callipers and disks, what the hell are they?!

The V 32 setup, much like the IV 32 setup before it, is very, very capable. Personally, I'm quite happy with 320mm vented fronts and 288mm vented rears (or least I used to be before I had to get used to a 1.2 Clio out here), but amongst the the Mark IV and Mark V community, R32 is THE setup to have. Is it better? Of course. Is it £1000's worth of better? I would probably rather spend that money on bloody good coilovers/FSDs and springs and uprated anti-roll bar(s). When I had new discs and pads all round for my OE setup it cost me about £300. But try having a Benz or BMW. The standard setups are immensely expensive.

An excellent set of brakes. The standard brakes on the GTI are crap and on the Edition 30 (same brakes, more bhp), woefully inadequate IMO. The back end used to twitch when braking from high speed. Very unnerving. Fine for driving around town but for anything faster, I wanted something better.


+1. Bigger discs, bigger calipers - massive improvement on the stock brakes. As I said before, if I stamped on them, they could cause whiplash in all of the passengers. Thankfully, I don't normally need to do hard braking - again, as before, you don't want to be in a situation where you wish you had them. Twice some fecker has cut in front of me and then braked. With standard brakes, I'd have certainly smacked into them but with the uprated ones, plenty of clearance in front. In fact, it's people behind me I'm now concerned. A few tailgaters have stopped being tailgaters once they realise how quickly/hard I brake at times. They tend to leave the required gap.


I already did. Around £1500 on Bilstein coilovers, Autotech ARBs, Whiteline Anti-lift kit and dogbone insert. Handles more sharply. No "lag" in the steering wheel - very responsive. Almost completely eliminated wheel hop. Along with the Stage 1 remap, it's massive improvement on the standard car.


I just wish I'd have afforded them - would loved to have had RS4 brakes on the front. Lighter than the R32 setup and even the stock brakes.

This thread is becoming disturbingly like this one. Minus the amount of physics going completely over my head.

Gets quite intense about halfway through page 2!

Lol there's a brake guru on the VAG forums who knows loads about brakes despite being an aircraft engineer (I think; might've been a pilot). I've seen similar discussions about the suspension arm upgrades, well as brakes, alloys etc. Sometimes it can become so overwhelmingly technical, you're begging for a "yes" or "no" type answer!