[Vwdiesel] New Premium Brakes

[Val Christian]

In recent work on my A2 91 Jetta, I elected to replace the rotors and pads,
which were OE.  Most of my driving is highway, and I'm conservative on
the brakes.

Bought run of the mill rotors, and the parts gal (they know me real well
with all the work I do) gave me the premium pads for the price of the
cheapies.

In extracting the capilers, I munged the head on the upper caliper
retainer bolt.  I ended up driving a 1/4" (vs. 5mm) allen into the
rounded out 5mm socket head on the right side.  On the left side I
unfortunately broke the upper caliper retainer bolt.  Fortunately,
it broke such that I could still get the caliper off.  A torch (6 cu ft
tip, if anyone cares) got the broken bolt out of the hub casting.

Later I replaced both top caliper retainer bolts and the upper guide pins.
I left the lowers on since there was no reason to change something that
is working OK.

The car sat for several weeks outside, waiting for me to get another
chance to work on it. When I did, I found that there was tremendous
drag.  A quick visual inspection didn't show anything wrong
on either side.  So I went up and down the driveway, using almost
full power and allot of clutch slipping to get going.  Brakes got hot.

I did some more of this, inspecting things, and using my handy dandy
leaf blower to cool things between test runs.  Finally I took things
out on the road at 40 MPH, and found that the rotors climbed to 500F.
I put a few miles on and the temps remained high.  A peak reading was
700 on the rotor and 230 on the caliper.  Time for research.  Called
around.

To make a long story a little shorter, it turns out that these premium
Bendis pads, allegedly contain a coating on the pads, which is designed
to help they seat with rotors (the rep's words, not mine).  I was told
that after 100 miles, the brakes wouldn't smoke any more and everything
would be OK.  The way I drive that could be 500 miles.

So out I went for a long series of runs.  And sure enough things are getting
better.  I can now push the car with one hand, and get it to move.
Temps after driving are around 180F.

I think I'll decline the pad upgrade next time.  It was nice of her, but
these pads are too much!

Val