Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Vancouver's best auto service experience. And we're talking cars. How are you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing well.
Mark: So today's victim is a 2010 Audi S4. What was happening with this vehicle?
Bernie: This vehicle was brought to our shop. The owner was complaining the brakes were grinding. He could hear a noise from the back. So he knew there was something wrong with the back brakes. We did our normal brake inspection that we do, road test the vehicle and put the vehicle on a hoist and look at the brakes fully and in detail. And yeah, that was what was going on, found the rear brakes were worn metal on metal. So the rear pads were completely worn out and the fronts, there was about a couple of millimetres left on the pads, which is time to replace the front brakes too.
Mark: So four wheel brake job, how often is that the case?
Bernie: Quite often, brakes will often wear evenly. Sometimes, you know, depending on the client, I mean, the front brakes could have been left for a little while, but not long. They don't have much life left in them and, you know, the braking ability is much better with a thicker pad than something that's thin. Although you may not ever notice that until you're really tested, like going down a steep hill for a long period of time. But it's always better to err on the side of caution with brakes and make sure they're good.
Mark: Yeah. You don't want them to be metal on metal when you really need them. Basically.
Bernie: No, you never want to let them get to that point.
Mark: So here's our Audi.
Bernie: Here's our Audi. Still looking good after, geez, must be a 15 year old car now.
Mark: What do we have here?
Bernie: So these are the rear brakes. This is a comparison. The new brake pad is on the right and the old worn out right down to metal on metal is on the left. And you can see that sort of shiny, bright area on the right hand side of the pad, where you're moving your mouse around, that is the rear brake. That is the metal on metal section. So there is no brake pad material left there at all anymore. It's completely gone.
Mark: Another view.
Bernie: Another view. Yeah. Side view. So you can see the pad and you can see [00:02:00] it's kind of worn on a slight angle as well, from the left side to the right, which is normal. I mean, they don't wear perfectly even. And then you can see the pad on the right is substantially thicker.
Mark: So why is there a different edge here to this brand new pad?
Bernie: That's kind of common on a lot of brake pads, they sham for the edge. I think it's for break in purposes. The pad will break in better. You know, there's actually material transfer between the brake pad and the rotor when you're initially braking the brake pads in and it's kind of an important function of how the brakes work and the longevity of the pads. Anyways, I think that chamfer is there and I think it reduces noise as well.
I say, I think, cause I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it'd be quite sure. As you can see, this is the front brake and you can see it has the chamfer as well, not in the whole pad surface, but part of it. You know, there's a lot of engineering that goes into brake pads. I don't know exactly all the details. I mean, squeaks and squeals are a common issue with disc brake pads. And it's not so much anymore. It's not very often we put a set of brake pads on and they have squeaks and squeals. It's quite rare actually, but it used to be a very common issue 30, [00:03:00] 40 years ago, back when I was a young man.
Mark: Yeah. Material science has improved.
Bernie: Yeah, it's improved drastically. It's quite amazing. So here we're looking at the rear brake rotor. Sort of an edge on view and that very rough surface you can see in a couple of areas is the metal on metal. It's basically the metal of the brake backing plate grinding the rotor off. So that's not a good thing. Makes a horrible noise. Also, if you leave it too long, sometimes the occasional person will for some reason, just keep driving it like this. It starts sending metal filings through the air and eventually, at least in a Vancouver climate, they start rusting and it can actually create a serious problem.
Like the rust flakes are almost not removable. I've seen wheels where they're coated in the rust flakes. And even the side of the body of the vehicle and it's almost impossible to remove it. So, you know, once you hear a grind, get it fixed, you should fix it before that, but never let it go that long.
So here's a view of the front brake caliper. So the other issue with this is we actually found the brake caliper dust boots torn, which makes it absolutely necessary to replace the brake calipers because at this point water can get in. It'll seize the piston up and then it'll cause the brakes to wear out really quickly.
Unfortunately, this picture, it's not great. I wasn't able to put my arrows in that I usually do, but, can you do the centre image Mark with your pointer? Yeah, that's the top of the piston and then right below that Is the dust boot. That dust boot is torn open. So at this point, the caliper needs to be replaced as well.
And we found one of the rears was also torn too. So calipers, anything with brakes, you always do in pairs, per axle. If there's damage to the one caliper, you do them both. Cause otherwise you get like imbalances in the way the car brakes and you don't want that.
Mark: So an expensive repair?
Bernie: Yeah, it is. It is. Once you add calipers and they're very expensive for these vehicles. It's not very often we actually do calipers on European cars. They seem to last a long time, a lot better than many North American cars. Yeah, the calipers, they generally last a long time, but you know, this car is 15 years old now, so it's not unexpectable that the boots would tear from age.
Mark: And probably being a high performance car, it probably gets driven fairly hard at times. it's going to need his brakes more than a normal family car probably would.
Bernie: Exactly. I mean, I can't comment on how the owner drives, but most people have these cars, I mean, it's kind of fun to rip around a bit in these kinds of cars. So the brakes can be worn a little harder.
Mark: Any other things that are unique about this job? The calipers are available. You just used aftermarket products.
Bernie: Yeah, we get rebuilt calipers although interestingly enough, the fronts were very difficult to find. Being an S model, the calipers are larger size than say an A4 model would be, and we weren't actually able to easily get calipers. So we overhauled them ourselves. We were able to get parts. Sometimes you can't overhaul, I mean, it depends on the damage. If, you know, this thing had been driven for a long time with water getting in, it may have rusted the inside of the caliper or damaged the piston, but the piston was in good shape and there was no damage inside of the metal of the piston bore. So we were able to get a caliper kit and overhaul a caliper.
And it'll work just fine and solves the problem of the torn boot. But normally we do opt to get remanufactured because they tend to go through everything and you know, fix any issues that happened. But the rears, we were able to get remanufactured calipers.
Mark: So there you go. If you're looking for service for your Audi in Vancouver, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment there, or you can call them at (604) 327-7112 to book your appointment. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark, and thanks for watching.
