Squeaking Brakes Problem

tophurler

Hi all,

I recently bought a 08 Audi A4, I've noticed that the majority of the time when applying the brakes there's that really annoying "squeaking" noise coming from them, I've googled it and some sites are claiming it's just natural, but it's extremely irritating! Has anyone any suggestions on getting it sorted??

Thanks

TH

voxpop

copper grease on the back of the brake pads where they touch the piston

shrapnel222

sometimes it's due to dust on the brake pads. Get a bottle of compressed air and spray between the pads and the disks. that might sort your problem

listermint

voxpop wrote: »

copper grease on the back of the brake pads where they touch the piston

+1 and dont put a light amount on as it will just wear of relatively quickly.

The squeek can be more predominant on different brands of pads. So try to get another brand in future.

tophurler

thanks for the quick replies guys, I'll try the compressed air solution and see how it goes. It's embarrassing too having a big bloody screech every time i wanna stop the car! I'm not too well up on mechanics so to apply the grease is it easily done/reached?

rebel.ranter

What has happened here is someone has fitted cheap brake pads to the car.
Good quality pads have an anti-squeal coating on the back of the pad, the bit that interfaces with the piston/calliper. It is almost like a tough rubber (exact compound I'm not sure of), you can see it on these pads below:



There is no coating on the cheaper pads only a thin layer of powder coat or paint so what happens after a short while is this coating wears away & then you have bare metal in contact with bare metal. When under pressure together they vibrate giving the squealing noise, a bit like chalk on a blackboard.

Copper grease is often suggested as a remedy, it has a high melting point so should melt away at the first braking, the idea is that it fills the gap between the back of the pad & the piston/calliper. It is only a temporary fix in my opinion, it will wear away after a bit of braking or get washed away with a power washer or what ever.

Similarly dust gets blamed, but it is in conjunction with the cheap pads.

The best fix is to swap out the pads with quality replacements with the coating on the back. Original Equipment supplied pads such as those supplied by a main dealer normally have this coating. In my opinion it is worth paying the extra few quid to avoid the noise.

Just to point out that most manufacturers these days don't actually make their own pads, for example BMW use three companies to supply/manufacture their braking components, ATE, Jurid, Textar. So an alternative to buying off the main dealer is to track down these at your local motor factors (which may not stock them) or online at a reputable parts stockist like Otto.ie , Eurocarparts.co.uk or GSF.co.uk, etc.
I believe textar also manufacture the Audi pads that you get in the audi box at the dealer.