cyclrder

I thought that I would report my findings whilst contemplating changing my pads...
My car is a 2010 TT MT cab with 23K mileage... I've owned the car since 12.5K. It has never been tracked (during my stewardship) and I really don't hammer on it too hard plus I'm pretty good at momentum management and using the transmission. The car is equipped with torque vectoring and sport ++.

I had heard all of the forum stories that you need to replace the pads at 50% .... So I was looking for a COVID project and decided ordered a complete set from Suncoast $900.
After getting the car up on my rack and removing all the wheels.. these are the numbers that I measured with my trusty digital vernier caliper:

• front pads from SunCoast measured 10.5mm new (this is only the braking material not including the metal backing)
• usage of right front pads on my car top of caliper: outside 9.47 / inside 9.98 bottom of caliper: outside 8.98 / inside 10.07 (I didn't measure the left front of the car)
• rear pads from SunCoast measured 11.2mm new
• usage of right rear pads on my car top of caliper; outside 9.83 / inside 10.14 bottom of caliper: outside 10.7 / inside 10.52 (left rear Top outside 9.9 / inside 10.15 bottom: outside 10.56/ inside 10.07)

the Rotors themselves showed zero wear or lip grooves (though I am sure that they have thinned a hair).
The service manual says to replace pads with 2mm left on the backing.... that would be way to thin for my taste but at this point, I could see getting more than 50K in mileage with my typical driving.
One thing of note is that I did find small little pebbles between the caliper and pad backing but I don't think it would have much effect.
Needless to say I didn't replace the pads but I did polish up my rotor caps with aluminum metal polish... they really shined up!
Any comments or thoughts for conversation would be interesting.

Terry Adams

Replaced my front pads at 89K because they were at 55%.

Dealer said the rotors at 114K were showing virtually no wear and good for the life of the car. I didn't believe the no wear, but we'll see.

Carlos4S

cyclrder

I have to say, I'll never have another Merc or Pcar without them going forward... I'm sooo over the brake dust on my E63 wagon and I even replaced to OEM with Porterfield RS4 pads that actually cut down the dust significantly, but they still leave a rusty brown coating that is a bitch to get off...

Needsdecaf

Have your wheels coated with a quality coating like GTechnic Crystal Serum Light / Ultra, or similar. Don’t fall for spray on “Coatings” or any of this Graphene nonsense either.

TT.BRN

I wonder how long they’ll last with track duty ....

Needsdecaf

Most of the hard core track guys on the GT3 / RS forum proactively switch to a steel setup for a reason.

TT.BRN

Yea but that’s for cost reasons as I understand .... Never came across someone who actually needed new rotors with track usage .... Just wondering what the longterm costs pccb vs steels is with some light to moderate track time ....

997TTEQNY

Replaced my rears last year at 43K.

They were around 50%

Not sure why they were that low so soon. PO may have had some track days.

I havent owned the car since new, but wasnt taking a chance..

cyclrder

that is actually about what I would expect. Remember that the PASM and Torque Vectoring are applying pressure even under normal conditions.

997TTEQNY

good point. I had forgotten that.

While the pads were pricey, I wasn't going to take any chances.

Johnny DB

I will never have another Porsche without PCCBs! If it's the car I want will retrofit them.