Reviews & Road Tests
Long-Term Audi Certified A4 1.8T: Part V
By by: David Herlihy
Jun 29, 2004, 19:13

Mileage: 26,500

As noted in our previous log, our long-term A4 had a bit of an adventurous time over the last several weeks. We are quite happy to say that during this time period we were able to get back to driving and enjoying the car.

We previously noted in Part III, that the car’s primary driver wasn’t happy with the stock brake pads that Audi ships these cars with from the factory. They just didn’t feel up to the task of stopping the car under semi-aggressive to aggressive (thus high heat-inducing) street driving. In those conditions, the car exhibited fairly noticeable brake fade when stopping from 75mph+.

While there are numerous brake options out there from many of the aftermarket tuners ranging from “big brake” upgrades like using Porsche’s “Big Red” caliper and rotor to Stoptech’s own solution. There are also many less extreme kits and pad varieties to choose from, so numerous that we are not even going to attempt to get into all of them in this article.

The problem we dealt with most often was the lack of high temperature “bite” or feel with the stock pads and the massive amount of brake dust deposits we were getting on the wheels. Brake dust is a normal product of braking and particularly prominent with pads that have high steel-content, much like our stock pads.

We then proceeded to do our homework in our own braking forum (fournd at http://forums.fourtitude.com/zeroforum?id=115). Suffice to say there was a wide-ranging assortment of opinions and experiences. Ultimately it was talking to a local track buddy of mine that led me to trying out Porterfield’s R4S (“S” as in Street).

Porterfield claims on their website that these pads are the best of both worlds, providing superior pedal feel and higher temperature resistance without the dust. It was hard to believe, but worth a shot given the glowing remarks we had heard.

We opted to swap out all four corners. While that seems like a complete and total waste of money since the car only had 26,000 miles on it, I felt that it was better to have superior braking performance and was worth the investment to me. Anyone not familiar with the process of changing out brakes on an Audi or Volkswagen should know that the process requires the specific Volkswagen-Audi tool for the back brakes.

Once installed, we proceeded to “bed” the brakes in. For this procedure we went to Stoptech’s website for additional instructions (http://www.stoptech.com/whitepapers/warped_rotors_myth.htm). We would caution folks to follow these instructions in familiar area that will be free of traffic and pedestrians.

After following the steps listed on the Stop Tech site, we still allowed roughly 300 miles or so before we vigorously used the brakes. When we believed the brakes were all set, we took them down our favorite local test route to get some heat in them. The difference was amazing.

Low temperature pad feel was equal to that of the stock pads, but once sufficient heat was built up in the pads, the R4S’ began to show their stuff. The pedal feel drastically improved when warm and the pads could continue to haul the car down where the stock pads would have given up.

Unfortunately we have not had a chance to upgrade our brake fluid at this time, but will in due course to finish out the total upgrade. It is also important to note that we decided to stay with the stock vented rotors for the time being.

Aside from our brake upgrade, the car has been performing flawlessly. Our previous speaker problem has yet to return and there were no faults with the car to report on for this period.

Driver Notes:

George Achorn – While I don’t get the brake fade “Hot Shoe” Herlihy gets in his kamikazee 75+mph heavy brake runs, there’s still a bit to be desired by the stock hardware. In a recent drive in Western Maryland along historic Route 68, continuous long down-hill braking resulted in heavy fade, inducing an on-again-off-again squeak from the pads ever since that always disappears when the car is in for service…. Damn that squeak!

Jamie Vondruska – The A4’s feel of quality on the inside never ceases to impress. Aside from a little bit of wear on the driver’s door, I’m a big fan of the car’s insides. Many though must lament the move from our ‘02’s aluminum interior trim to plastic.

The one real shortfall of the interior is cupholders. Sure, no one wants to admit they use them, but the ones in the A4 really emphasize the encouragement by David that no beverage be in his car. The single dashboard-mounted cupholder is limited in the size of beverage it will accept, and its shallowness looks like a recipe for disaster under hard acceleration. A service manager at one of the local dealers has suggested radios with beverage spill damage are quite common.

There are additional, more utilitarian cupholders in the center console armrest, but folding the armrest to the down position in a manual gearbox-equipped A4 leaves a bit to be desired in regards to elbow-room.

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