Brake disks

80,000 km (~ 50k miles, 2 winters with lots of salt) and all my brake disks/rotors are in bad shape. This has happened with every car I've owned in Ontario ... it just goes with the territory and our driving style (like leaving a well-salted car parked for a few days).

The brakes are pulsating some, and I've chipped some of the rust off the edge of one of the rotors when changing out the winters wheels.

But there does seem to be a lot of pad left. And from what I've read here, that doesn't seem unusual as all our driving is pretty much highway.

So my questions:

Are special tools required, meaning it's an expensive stealer job, or can a local brake shop (Midas, Canadian Tire, so on) handle this? Just how standard are these?

Should I get the pads changed as well?

It is pretty simple to do the front brakes. Rear requires a special tool thats 50-60 bucks for the tool. You can do it yourself and save several hundred bucks. my prior experience was oil changes and glow plug repl.

I'd love to do them myself but we've only one car and live out in the bush, so if something goes wrong, I'm screwed.

I do my own oil though!

Anyway, I'll ask around on the Ontario forum. Maybe there's a reputable independent Passat mechanic with the proper tools around here somewhere. It would eventually be nice to find someone other than a dealer to do the timing belt too.

http://johnvey.com/features/a4brakes/

Has a very clear, simple write up on how to do the brakes. I had some trepidation but its really easy, just gotta make sure you crank them to the right torque so they stay on! But the brake lines, etc arent fooled with.

I'd think any shop can do them but you may want to buy your parts online and bring them so you get exactly what you want vs. what they have available.

Well, I may jump in and try to do it myself after all.

My main concern, from past experience, is parts rusted together. Like the old rotors to the axle, in particular. But with luck, patience and liberal amounts of WD-40, I'll be able to get everything apart.

The rear rotor has a screw (?) attaching it to the axle? Apparently it's just for alignment purposes and can be drilled out if it causes problems?

Timely thread for me. Gearing up for a TB/water-pump change in the next couple thousand miles on my 2005 Passat and was thinking it's about time for a brake job. Seems like brakes for the B5.5, while not particularly hard to find, aren't well-stocked at the common parts vendors posted on here. I can't find one vendor that has rotors and pads for both front and rear brakes for the B5.5, so it would involve buying different parts from multiple vendors. And there doesn't seem to be many options either for the B5.5 - most seem to only stock one brand of pads/rotors for front and rear. Tdiparts.com lets you mix & match brands for complete sets for the A4 platform, but seemingly not for the B5.5. And it seems hard to find the Akebono pads and ATE rotors for the B5.5 (which seem to be highly regarded around here for other TDI platforms). All I can find are Zimmerman rotors and Jurid or Pagid pads, and the Pagids seem to get bad reviews around here (high dust, less bite, short life).

So what are some of the suggested brake part brands for the B5.5? And more importantly, where to get them? Any brands to completely avoid? Thoughts?

check out ecs tuning to start. They have OEM, OEM+ and big brake upgrades.

Here's another good howto on Passat brake work:
http://www.passatworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179518

Like anything else, Google's your friend for finding brake parts. There's several stores in the Toronto, Ontario area so there's gotta be some around Atlanta.
But I ended up buying the Metalnerd Brake piston retractor by email. When that gets here, I'll give it a go.

Yeah, I know I could get a set of "replacement" brakes at several places in Atlanta. I guess I was more interested in what folks thought about the various brands for their TDI. With the A4 platform there seems to be 6 or 7 or more brands of pads and 2 or 3 brands of rotors widely available, with some definite preferences and definite "stay away" opinions here, but there doesn't seem to be as much info or availability of that many brands for the B5.5. I thought this B5.5 forum was as good a place as any to inquire about it though and see what Passat TDI owners opined.

Afraid I can't be much help but maybe others will chime in.

'Cause of the corrosion around here, we'll probably be replacing rotors & pads every two years when the brake lines are flushed. So we'll not be buying premium parts, just oem quality.

The pads and rotors I have on order are all TRW except the rear rotors which are Zimmerman. Both are German brands, if that means anything.

Akebono ceramic pads are $46 rear and $89 front for my 2002 Passat AWD from Rock Auto http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php. This is much cheaper than anywhere else I have found. Autozone and several other chains in the states will loan (fully refundable deposit) a disk brake repair tool. It is not VW specific but certainly fits all VW's I have seen. Much cheeper to get a loaner than the one from metalnerd. Even if you keep it, cost is only the deposit. This set is approx $35 vs metalnerds $45.

FredGard said:

Akebono ceramic pads are $46 rear and $89 front for my 2002 Passat AWD from Rock Auto http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php. This is much cheaper than anywhere else I have found.

Click to expand...

Awesome. Thanks. Rotors seem reasonably priced too.

Torque

So what's the proper torque for the front and rear caliper bolts?

http://johnvey.com/features/a4brakes/
says 92 ft-lbs for the fronts hex bolts, but this is for an audi a4. Is it different?

http://www.passatworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179518
says 18-22 ft-lbs for the front nex and 22 for the rear caliper.

20 ft-lbs isn't much. It's at the very low end for my torque wrench.

Is this in the Bentley?

Ahhh, never mind.

The 96 ft-lbs is for attaching the caliper bracket to the axle.
The 22 ft-lbs is for attaching the caliper to the bracket

The bolts for the bracket that the caliper slides on are 92 ft-lbs.
The pins that the caliper slides on are 18-22 ft-lbs.

Thanks MoGolf, maybe 92 ft-lbs (instead of 96) would have saved me.

First I couldn't get the rotor off, just as I feared. Rusted solid to the axle. And I didn't want to bang on it with a sledge hammer, and possibly break something, because I wanted to drive it in to the shop.

So I started putting it back together, using 96 ft-lbs on the caliper bracket bolts. The top bolt went in ok, but the bottom stripped. Hopefully just the bolt stripped, but I didn't look.

Not my day.

Tomorrow I'll bring it into the shop and have them do it. Up on a hoist, I imagine you can get a good swing at the rotors and break them free. And if they lather on the anti-seize real good, next time I might be able to get them off.

But that stripped bolt (or socket?) bugs me. 96 ft-lbs versus 92 is not that big a difference.

I looked it up in the info I have instead of those links. The torque should have been 120 NM/89 ft-lbs for the front. Still, that's not a lot of variance.

There is a note that if the bolts are reused, the ribs on the bolt head need to be cleaned. If that was not done, you will get inaccurate torque on the bolt.

On the back, the torque is 95Nm/70 ft-lbs for the carrier bolts.

Just to put this story to rest...

Drove very carefully (downshifting a lot) to a small-town dealer over an hour away. They were fine with using my rotors and pads, but the stripped threads required heli-coil treatment.

And the price wasn't that bad: $276can+tax for installing my rotors and pads, $158can+tax for the heli-coil fix. By buying the parts myself, I pretty much paid for the heli-coil.

So the good news is that I may have found a dealership that I can live with. The whole reason I started on this journey was because of a $1050can+tax quote for the brake job (including parts) from another (big-city) dealer.

The bad news is that on the way home a stone hit the windshield, pretty much requiring that it be replaced . Sigh ...

If only a stone would break my windshield then I'd have an excuse to install the automatic wiper mod as I did on my Golf over 6 years ago now.

Thanks for letting us know we don't have to worry about getting hit by a rare Passat Variant.

I was told at the garage that I need to change the four brakes + pads. Theyestimated the job on 500+ CAN. (300+ parts, ~200 labour). Is that a fare rate?. Also, I read in this thread it is better to buy the parts online and have them installed. Could you recommend an online store?

On the other hand, I heard some pads come with a wear sensor. I have a Jetta TDI 2001, and have no idea if they are good for it or not. Please advise.

Thanks

seems like a great dealership price for R&R of 2 rear and 2 front brakes if that includes pads rotors and all labour. Its a phenominal deal I'd guess. Actually- sounds too good to be true. Something is wrong so you better call them and double check. Likely to be double that...

Oh, I see you have a Jetta, not a passat. So, you should probably go ask in the Jetta forum...

All depends the quality of what he is putting on your car?? Cheap Chinesse or something good?

Heres a quick tip, first if you ever buy from Rock Auto, put TURBODIESEL in the where did you heir about us box and get 5% off your parts.
Secondly if you make a free account @ upromise, and go through their window to your purchaseing sights, you will earn money for your kids college...FREE! and best part about that is they have a link for AUTO Partswarehouse.com. there you will find ALL the rotors and pads mentioned here with free shipping. AND 6% kick back into your account. They have ALOT of stuff for our B5.5's..... Don't know about you, but every school penny counts in this house!
Be Well

https://lty.s.upromise.com/earn.do?cx=l1
http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/
Heres another similar good brake sight http://www.usautoparts.net/

Starting to embark on a front brake rotor and pads job. Vehicle has about 80k miles (130k km) and has pulsations upon braking. Not serious but I know what's going on. At the 128k km service, the dealer stated that front rotors need to be replaced, the calipers are sticking and therefore also causing the pads to overheat.

So, the quote from dealer was about $500 which in fact is not too insane, but I think I can do this job myself. As others in this thread have tried to determine, what brand of rotors are decent to buy at reasonable prices? I see this Zimmermann brand from many vendors, but no real opinions back from anyone. ECS also has Balo and OP. And tfiparts.com show a kit with Hudson(?) rotors. So many choices, but little in opinions... I don't want anthing special, just good quality OEM performance and another 80k miles life from them. What about pads?

Rotor replacement is pretty straightforwrad, but I am wondering about that "sticking" of pads/calipers. The sliding parts of the caliper is different than the rear ones, so I am not certain if the fronts can be greased/lubricated.

Thanks for any comments.

Decent prices - pads & rotors

http://www.importrp.com/http://www.importrp.com/search.php?mode=search