# Check Brake Pads Warning



## deepak.tripathi (Apr 14, 2006)

I have returned from abroad after 7 weeks, and my late 2004 Phaeton (3.2 Petrol) has taken a day to "power up" and for some warning icons to disappear. After two days, I have the "Check Brake Pads" warning on. It happened only an hour ago. My breaks feel okay. The car has done 28000 miles. It was serviced 16 months ago and passed the MOT in January this year. I am inclined to wait for a day or two. Any advice from experts. 

Regards

Deepak Tripahi


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## Prince Ludwig (Mar 24, 2007)

The brake pad warning circuit isn't integrated into any of the other systems so it probably means the warning is valid and not just a spurious "low battery" fault.

Harry


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## Jxander (Aug 5, 2008)

Phaeton brake pads have a sensor attached that when pads have worn sufficiently thin, the sensor will wear through and provide the brake warning light to illuminate. The warning means that you need to replace the pads in the near future. It's not an emergency need but at your convenience in say the next 1000 km, you should deal with this. I just did my Touareg front brakes. My VW tech warned me that I needed front brakes about 1500 miles ago. I declined the service as I wanted to do it myself. Since I planned to replace the rotors also, I was not concerned about damaging them by waiting too long. I was only concerned about maintaining safety. 1000 miles later my brake pad warning light came on but I couldn't get around to the job for another 500 miles. When I removed the pads, they still had "enough" pad material for quite a few miles. I'm saying all this not to dissuade you from moving forward with the brake repair. My only point is not to panic and take your time on the decision. 

Good luck, Jim X


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## deepak.tripathi (Apr 14, 2006)

Thank you, Prince Ludwig and Jim X, for your replies. I will take the car to the dealership in the next couple of days. 

Any idea how much replacing break pads may cost at the dealership? 

Regards,

Deepak Tripathi


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## EnglishPhaeton (Dec 6, 2010)

deepak.tripathi said:


> Thank you, Prince Ludwig and Jim X, for your replies. I will take the car to the dealership in the next couple of days.
> 
> Any idea how much replacing break pads may cost at the dealership?
> 
> ...


Hi,

If you can jack the car up and change a wheel then you could easily change the pads yourself. Expect to pay less than £45 for Mintex or Ferodo, Pagid also about the same.

Stu


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## vitop (Aug 22, 2012)

Does the car say if it is front or rear brakes?


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## EnglishPhaeton (Dec 6, 2010)

vitop said:


> Does the car say if it is front or rear brakes?


No

Stu


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## arthurgodsake (Nov 26, 2010)

Where do you live in the UK? I am sure there are plenty of VW specialists who would do this cheaper than a dealership would.
Tim


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## W12Canada (Nov 4, 2012)

I think someone mentioned on the forums that only the front pads have the wear sensors?


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## tomasty (May 24, 2011)

W12Canada said:


> I think someone mentioned on the forums that only the front pads have the wear sensors?


I can confirm that the rear pads also have sensors as I just ordered a set from VW dealer

Tomas


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## Paximus (Aug 26, 2011)

My Tech chum just did the V10's pads and disks for me all round, because he owed me a favour, which saved about £500 on the dealer cost. I helped, which slowed him down... It is not a difficult job for someone happy to get their hands dirty and who has a reasonable tool box, pretty much the same as most other car's brakes except a bit larger.

But if the biggest maintenance so far has been topping up the oil, I suggest to get a Tech to do it, it's proper car work and brakes are safety-critical.

I sourced the V10 parts from normal on-line suppliers, except for the 18-inch V10 front disks, which are rare and have to come from VW or Lamborghini. For the other versions of the cars the parts are easy to source.

The parts for the V10 cost £450 and it took about an hour each corner, including cups of tea and chat. The 3.0TDI would be about £200 cheaper.

The dealer parts cost would have been about £670 and the labour charge about £300 including tax.

Chris


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## W8CMP (Mar 20, 2004)

Had the dreaded 'Check Brake Pads' warning come up on the dash yesterday while up in Shropshire, 200 miles from home...

I have an MoT booked for Saturday with my main dealer (part of my service package) so needed to get these done pronto, but was wary of dealer rates. I did however want someone who was familiar with VWs and would use genuine parts.

I looked around locally and have now booked the car in with AMD Tuning at Thurrock, who are charging me the following:

Front Brake Pads £196.54
Front Discs (lipped) £249.60
Fitting all the above £108.00
Total £554.14

(all including VAT)

How does this compare with others in the UK ?

Chris


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

There's no need to panic when the light comes on, they're not about to stop working. Those parts look expensive to me, especially the pads, although the labour cost looks pretty good. Have them check the width of the old discs before you fork out for new ones, I found on mine that the discs last for about 6 months short of two sets of pads, so I run them slightly thin and change the discs every other time I do pads. If you want to save a bit more dosh, it's not a difficult job to do yourself.


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## W8CMP (Mar 20, 2004)

I wondered about the price of the pads I must admit, though the discs looked cheaper than I expected. The labour charge is the same for just pads, with no extra labour charged for doing the discs, so I went with that, being substantially cheaper than my dealer. 

I checked the discs myself and they're lipped by a good 2 to 3mm. I believe they've not been changed on the car and this must be the end of the second set of front pads on the car at 63,000 miles (I bought it at 32,000 miles and the pads were pretty well new).

Having an MOT booked for Saturday, I wanted to get these done beforehand as I believe they will now fail a car showing a warning for any error - the brake pad wear indicator included no doubt. If they reckon the discs are OK, I will buy them anyway and keep them until I do need them... 

Cheers.
Chris


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## FootSore (Aug 22, 2006)

I had mine done at VW today. 154,000 and had the light on for some 1300 of mainly motorway miles. 

New Pads & Disks a total of £485.27
Labour £126.72
Pads £157.24
Discs £201.31

I had to ask for an extra discount on top of my Colbornes4Life discount I get for having an old car but they duly obliged. Mind I had also dropped just under £2k for 4*Champion 18inch wheels with winter tyres. (starting separate thread)

Hope this info helps.


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

At those prices, I think I'd be looking for aftermarket pads & discs. I did front pads & discs myself using VW parts from my local dealer for just over $400!


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## FootSore (Aug 22, 2006)

With labour at £126 I think I would let them do the work and take the kids to the park for an hour or two! 

Plus they washed it and vacuumed it and I am not likely to do that either.

Dave


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## W8CMP (Mar 20, 2004)

Check Brake Pads light came on again today, so now it's the turn of the rear pads. Need to get these done in the next couple of weeks as we're off for a drive to the South of France & Monaco later in June, so I want everything working properly.

VW have quoted me £91.07 for the pads and 0.9 hours costing £118.80 for the labour, totalling £209.87 (plus VAT). I have requested a quote from my local German car specialist for comparison. 

Any recommendations on the make of a good replacement pad if not genuine VW ?

Also got them to quote me for the front droplinks and was given a price of £79.37 for the 2 anti-roll bar link rods, plus 1.1 hours labour costing £145.20 for a total of £224.57 (plus VAT). Again I'll get a quote from my independent for comparison as I am sure they will better this.


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## arthurgodsake (Nov 26, 2010)

They're having a turkish aren't they? I am sure there are plenty of specialists who could do better than that. Did you try negotiating? I have found that this sometimes produces good results.

Tim


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## W8CMP (Mar 20, 2004)

It was a quick visit to establish it was definitely the rears and to get a quote. Once I had a bit of paper with the numbers I made a hasty retreat. 

I have http://www.snautohaus.com/ quoting me as they're local, and I was very impressed with their service when I got 2 new tyres from them a month ago via Blackcircles.com 

They just phoned me a moment ago to advise they will e-mail me a quote first thing tomorrow morning. I'll also get the droplinks quoted by them too...


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

0.9 hours is a pretty good estimate, although that labour rate is scary, at the current exchange rate that's not too far off $200/hour. It's a pretty simple job to do yourself with a few basic tools, then it's just a case of making some calls to get a discounted set of pads, either VW or something else. The most time-consuming part of the job when doing it yourself is putting the car on jack stands and getting the wheels off, the dealer has the advantage of a lift and air tools of course.

If your pads are down to the wear indicators, you should also check the rotors. I run two sets of rear pads to each set of rotors, but I change them well before the indicator lights come one, and I run the rotors a bit thin on the second set. Others are of the opinion that you should change the rotors every time you change the pads.


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

Looking down this thread, I'm getting deja vu all over again.


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

W8CMP said:


> Also got them to quote me for the front droplinks and was given a price of £79.37 for the 2 anti-roll bar link rods, plus 1.1 hours labour costing £145.20 for a total of £224.57 (plus VAT).


Hi Chris:

The quote you were given for replacement of the two droplinks is not significantly different that what it cost me to have these two parts replaced by my Canadian VW dealer last month. 

Be aware that the repair manual states that the final tightening of the bolts holding each end of a droplink in place (there are two bolts for each droplink) must be carried out with the car sitting on the ground, with the full weight of the car on the wheels. In practice, this means that the technician first removes the old droplinks (with the car lifted up on a conventional hoist, where the hoist arms are supporting the body of the car and the wheels are dangling), then fits the new droplinks, installs the bolts without tightening them, then drives the car to a different location in the shop where there is a drive-on platform hoist (a hoist that will lift the car when the full weight of the car is on the four wheels), then the technician does the final tightening of the droplink bolts when the car is up on the platform hoist.

This whole process is necessary to ensure that the rubber bushings in the droplinks are not distorted as a result of the bolts being tightened while the front wheels are dangling.

Finally, the droplink bolts are torque-to-stretch (TTS) fasteners - the instructions call for them to be tightened to a certain torque value, then another 90°. TTS fasteners should not be re-used. If you are meticulous about such things, you should order four new bolts for the droplinks.

Michael


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

*Archival Note: * 

Illustrated discussion about droplink replacement - Replacement of droplinks on front anti-roll bar

Illustrated discussions about brake pad replacement - 
....Brake Servicing (general discussion, wear limits, disassembly, component life)
....Replacing Front Brake Pads & Discs
....Replacing Rear Brake Pads and Rotors


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## Daytonabridge (Jan 19, 2014)

I have recently had new brakes all round , supplied and fitted from my local garage .

Rear discs and pads £170 inc VAT and fitting

Front discs and pads £270 inc VAT and fitting

He uses and recommends Pagid and when bedded in are fine .


Graham .


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## lauwerspeter (May 24, 2006)

Just an on-topic but not Phaeton specific thought here. In the 10 years I owned my Jag X-Type, the aftermarket rotors and pads that I THOUGHT were an upgrade to the OEM never came CLOSE to performing as the OEM brakes did... especially when new. In addition, I got 96,000 miles out of my original brakes with never a warp or a shake (I'm not kidding here... 96K miles). In the next 50,000 miles I went through two aftermarket sets. Considering how much heavier (and therefore harder on the brakes) the Phaeton is and how well the OEM brakes seem to work, I personally have NO intention of using anything other than genuine VW rotors and pads.

Anyone have any real world experience here? For those of you that HAVE installed less costly aftermarket rotors and pads, does the braking equal the braking with genuine VW pads and rotors? Do they seem to be lasting as well?


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## cbh123 (Aug 25, 2013)

That is a very interesting post. 
I also have been driving an X-Type for the past 8 years... and had the EXACT same problem with their brakes. 
I replaced the original brakes with aftermarket and the car became almost dangerous with poor brakes. 
I swapped pads, no difference. finally got OEM parts and the car braked normally again. ( I would never say the x's brakes are excellent lol) 

Recently, I pad-slapped the x-type with some of the other pads I had, on the used OEM rotors, and surprisingly it brakes just fine. 
It seems the issue with poor braking was likely the cheap rotors... ( it never occurred to me that the cast iron could be different enough to change the friction of the brakes) 

now that being said, I put aftermarket brakes on my M3 last year, ( I used top quality Zimmerman Rotors, and Porterfield pads) and the brakes continue to be EXCELLENT. 

with all that in mind, I just replaced the brakes on the Phaeton, and I ordered the parts from Blauparts... good quality German parts, not cheap discount stuff.'
The brakes are just barely broken in from a week of driving, but they are basically excellent. 

I don't think the issue is anything more than "you get what you pay for" 

There are all kinds of good aftermarket parts... even OEM brand sold elsewhere ... I would not be afraid of saving money from shopping around but I definitely will not buy super cheap rotors again.


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## W8CMP (Mar 20, 2004)

Just had the rear pads done at my local German car specialist SN Autohaus in Hainault. Quoted me yesterday and did the work this morning for £180 including VAT. Car was washed too. Used genuine VW parts. Told me the discs are slightly lipped but fine for now.

Much better than the £251 VW were quoting...


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

Rotors are "lipped" 5 minutes after you fit them. What matters is the thickness of the non-lipped part.


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