Brake Upgrade

Seems I cannot post this in the maintenance section, so I'll post it here.

I purchased an EBC brake kit that included rotors and Red Stuff pads for my '15. The front went on without a hitch, but I did have to cut the wire plug that was attached to the pad, but the back was not smooth. The rear rotors were good to go but the pad tabs were just a touch too wide to fit into the calipers. Not wanting to take everything apart again, I shaved the pads but ended up going too far and there was far too much slop for me to feel safe. I have since order another set of pads. Has anyone else encountered this with the EBC pads or any other Non-VW, stock pad? What did you do about it? Thanks for any input you have.

Drive safe.

Did you wind back (retract) the adjusters on the rear calipers? You had to cut the wear indicator wiring? Why didn't you just unplug it?

Not on my Passat yet! If and when I'll pay to have it done.

A few years ago I bought new rotors and pads for my 2002 Jetta at home. I also did not want to spend $ 50.00 for the special tool needed to turn the calipers back so I bought a $ 5.00 cube. It worked but a bit laboriously.
Long story short I had the wrong pads for the front so had to put everything back together and get pads at an Autozone in Mexico.

I completed the brake job but I promised myself NEVER EVER again.

Actually the cube thing works great. What you do is remove the disk, put the caliper back on and use a big clamp to keep the caliper from sliding off of the pins.

The caliper is held securely in place so you can use both hands to turn and push to retract the adjuster. Makes a rear brake job a piece of cake.

My cube tool didn't fit the pistons on the rear calipers of my '11. Fortunately, the free AutoZone brake tool rental worked great, and I didn't have to remove the rotor or do any additional steps. I generally get two sets of pads use out of the rotors.

Thanks for brining this thread back up. Seems EBC does not make a "direct fit" for the 2015 Passat in the Red Stuff pads. The reason for cutting the wire off the front pads is the wiring is for the Low Brake Pad Indicator, that our cars do not have (perhaps that is an Audi feature.) The rears are an entirely different beast. The stock pads have tab with a spring that hold them in place. The EBC (and other rear brake pads from AutoZone and presumably others) have a tab that is too wide to fit in the caliper and does not have a spring. I ended up purchasing stock rear pads on eBay (because the dealership wanted 3x more) and putting them on.

That said, while I love the braking performance, clearly better than stock, I am disappointed by the amount of brake dust from the EBC Red Stuff pads on the front. The rear stock pads do not have nearly as much. If I still have the car at 120K, I might consider going back to stock pads all around while leaving on the EBC slotted rotors.

Drive safe.

The oe pads are trw, which is about as good as it gets. Buy trw pads which fit and relatively low dust.

When I had to buy the front sets of pads at an Autozone in Mexico, on the package they were called "GOLD". In all the years I've had disk brakes those had no dust I could ever see.
Maybe Autozone has the same ones in the States?

My Ebc rotors and red pads went on without any issues. Way less dust than stock front and rear. Could you have a caliper dragging??

No issues installing my EBC brakes.

I installed EBC brakes about 2 months ago. Replaced both disks and pads, both front and rear. Used dimpled and slotted on the front, and slotted on the rear. Total cost: around $600, including buying some new sockets and wrenches. I did notice that EBC red stuff brakes DO produce quite some dust - just the same as OEM or even a bit more. I do drive a lot on the Interstate, but get in a bit of traffic. Rear wheels produce more dust than fronts, which was the opposite with OEM brakes. The brakes are very smooth and quite strong in braking. I would say a lot better than OEM brakes, which also squeaked - reason why I replaced otherwise perfectly good brakes.

Photos.

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