rear brake pad wear

[loadswine]

I noticed yesterday that my rear pads were much thinner than the fronts and only have about 5mm left after 14000 miles. The rear wheels also seem to get dustier than the fronts. It's a TDi sport with DSG, just wondered if anyone else had noticed similar.

 

[altea-ego]

No, my fronts are definately always dirty than the rear.

May be your handbrake is on/siezed?

 

[loadswine]

Maybe, will jack it up and have a little look.I did wonder that myself.
Perrhaps that's why my fuel consumpton is lousy?

 

[Tell]

I tend to get less breaking on one rear wheel which the garage says is fine, since that one always appears more rusty than the others since it doesn't get cleaned too well by use, albeit I'm not a heavy breaking person. So without looking at anything I reckon I would have more wear at the front.

 

[loadswine]

I would have expected more wear/dust at the front, which is one of the reasons I started the thread.
Mine has always had more brake dust on the rears and when I looked at the pads the other day, I noticed they were pretty worn compared to the fronts.

Perhaps this is the source of the phantom high pitched noise that I put up a thread about some months ago

 

[ALTEA DUDE]

I'm definately slapping more Wonder Wheels cleaner on the front than on the back of mine. Would get yours checked, sounds like somethings not quite right.

 

[loadswine]

I tend to agree. Will jack it up at the weekend to see if there is any dragging from the brakes on the rear disc, then off to the dealers to see what they can do.
Thanks for the input.

 

[Tell]

Interested to see what you find... BTW I might treat myself to that chipping box for my birthday in March.

 

[loadswine]

Well, jacked it up and rotated the wheels. Not completely friction free, maybe the handbrake is not adjusted correctly.
Wheels do spin if you give them a push and continue to rotate, but I suspect something is causing the pads to make contact with the disc a little more than they should.
Gonna contact the dealer and get them to look at it.

 

[JPV]

Had my TDI with DSG in for its first service at just under 10000 miles on the clock. The garage report stated that front disc pads were approx. 30% worn and the rear ones 20%.

 

[loadswine]

Had my TDI with DSG in for its first service at just under 10000 miles on the clock. The garage report stated that front disc pads were approx. 30% worn and the rear ones 20%.

That's very interesting, will dig out my service docs and see if anything mentioned, I know they mentioned about tyre wear, but they said that was even! In fact , the inner of the offside front was down to the canvas! Good job my tyre supplier spotted it.
May need to change dealerships to sort this one.

 

[Tell]

hmmm JPV as I reach for my annual service paper work.... no mention of any wear and I got the DSG as well, but I take bends slowly like on roundabout so as not to do the tyres in and I don't brake heavily if I can help it ... I do boot it up on motorways mind you.

 

[loadswine]

Mmmmm, you've read my threads before Tell on replacing tyres and such and I have to admit that I'm not the most sedate driver around!
However, I've never seen rear brakes outwear fronts before, and I intend to get to the bottom of this.

 

[Tell]

I started off with a Fiat Uno ES [Energy Saving].... 65 MPG and I use to get it... so in city traffic I pretend I still have it, but let rip on motorways . I wear my green badge sometimes .... other times if I see a Z4 and it cuts me up I get just a bit aggressive .... errr knowing that I can stab my foot down with the DSG and all those ego tripping sports car owners at 70 - 80 - 90 MPH won't be finding their gears and I just continue.... [excepting the guys who's got the Porche here].

 

[loadswine]

Tell, errr I do actually have a sports car as well!
But, you're right , the Altea would have a lot more shove after 70 mph.
The little car is for feeling good with the top down and nipping round corners, just fun really.