Brake Balance

[Taka Mizutani]

Grant-
I know that you're doing more like 80-90% of the braking in the front.
However,
the initial brake drag on the rears is a characteristic of most VW/Audi cars
running
Bosch 5.1 and newer, exactly how I described.

If you "drive it like you stole it" all the time, then you would not see
this phenomenon,
but I don't know too many people that do that.

When you mention your S4 and S6, both of those cars have the Lucas/Girling
4-pad,
2-piston caliper setup. I don't know how that factors in, all of the cars I
was talking about
are single-piston setups. Maybe the cars with the big brakes act a little
differently.

The brake proportioning is conducted via the ABS system, all the time- at
least that is
my understanding of the system, although I could very well be wrong.

I did not see anything like this on my 5ktq or 200q, both pre-5.1 systems. I
have only noticed
the high rear brake pad wear on VW/Audi cars with 5.1 or 5.3 ABS.

I will have to see what comes of the V70R which also has a Bosch brake
system, I think-
I haven't really been under the hood of that car very much. I know that the
front pads in
the V70R were fairly worn in 19k miles, the rears look fine. Maybe Volvo
does not spec
a calibration like VW. All 4 wheels dust an insane amount on the Volvo,
though, so the rears
are definitely doing something even in everyday driving. Either that, or
having 4 piston brakes
all around with huge rotors and pads simply makes a ton of dust.

Taka


On 1/10/07, Grant Lenahan <glenahan at vfemail.net> wrote:
>
> Not my experience, although the explanation sounds a little plausible -
> but only up to a point. Read on.
>
> However, on more serious braking, ABS cannot do what you say and still
> have the car brake effectively.  braking grip is proportinal to weight.
> Weight in an Audi, on deceleration, will probably be 70% of more to the
> front.  QED.
>
> Grant
>
>