hey everyone. I just bought a 01 2.8 A4 and love it! it's a big set up from my crappy saturn. anyways, i've noticed that my brakes are starting to get more and more sqeaky. i'm sure this is a pretty basic problem, but how do i fix it? i dont really want to buy new pads or rotors, but is that the only way to go?

 

did you check your brake pads

 

My brakes a re squeaking now too and I have the symbol on my cluster display that its the pads that are worn. Not to try and hijack the thread, but what does that kind of job (replacing the pads) cost at the stealership?

 

Depends on the stealership. Don't give them the chance to forcefully expand your *******. Just DIY or take it to an Audi mechanic. It's easy, relatively fast, and muuuch cheaper. You need a special twisty-pushy tool if you're gonna DIY that you can rent from Autozone for like 10 bucks.

 

Don’t have someone do it, replacing the pads is a straight forward job that you can do in less than an hour depending on how good you are and it’s only like $20.

 

i'll look into new pads then. there's no worn brakepad light lighting up on the HUD. are they really worn or just..i dunno..dusty?

 

German cars suck for brake dust, if your pad aren't worn to where they need to be replaced then I would suspect brake dust causing the squeaks. Mine squeak too, and they have about 10k on them. If your car is still under warranty Audi will replace the pads/rotors for free..

 

check out the rotors. if you can see grooves, the pad is worn to the point of grinding the metal of the rotor. on a lot of european cars with disc, i've found that if you look the disc head on, there is a tell tale slot for an indicator of wear. if the contact surface is flush with the indicator slot on the outer portion of the disc, it needs replacement. on these rotors you cant mill them, only suck up the replacement cost.

 

I live in Chicago and have an A4 with 40k miles... The brakes have been slipping and there has not been any brake light pad warning lights flashing... The dealer says the rotors are shot and that they are not covered under the warranty... I think they are full of it.. How can you have worn rotors without the pads going first?? Is this common?

 

Brakes are never under warranty, rotors included. Rotors are turned and replaced often. They're usually not that expensive. Check your local auto parts store for replacements. Get the premium kind, they're usually about $20-$30 per rotor. If you want to buy OEM, they will probably charge you at least $50 per rotor. If you want to be baller, you can replace them with Brembo rotors. Don't bother with the slotted or drilled rotors, if the brake system isn't designed to handle it you're wasting valuable rotor surface.

To answer the original poster, this could be caused by lack of grease on the shims of the pads. If the contact between the caliper and shim or shim and pad (if they're seperate) is not greased, it can cause squeeking noises under braking. Since your car has less than 100k miles on it, I wouldn't say it's caused by some kind of binding in the calipers, but it could be. The stealership will try to rape you for $300-$400 to go thru all the scenarios that could cause the squeeking.

It's pretty easy to tell if your pads are worn. You can usually look thru the wheel and see the pad material. A pad is usually a quarter inch of ceramic backing with about 1/4-1/2 inch of friction material that takes up a little smaller overall area. If all you see is the ceramic backing, then you're out of pad. If you're VERY low on pad, the pad has a 'scrapper' in it that will make a VERY obnoxious squeeling noise all the time, not just when you're on the brakes. This is to annoy you so much you get the pads replaced before they're gone altogether.