996 brakes cooked.......

[charlie360]

Hi all - I'm just wondering if anybody else has had similar experiences on the brakes. I am just having the car serviced now prior to an RMA track day at Bedford on Saturday and the dealer has told me that I need to have new discs and pads all round as the old ones are cooked. Since they last gave the car a full check over and sold it to me I've done around 4,000 miles and done a very wet session at Bruntingthorpe which didn't really envolve much heavy braking - so I was rather surprised at this. Apparently Porsche claim that you are likely to need a full set of discs and pads every track day you do (and therefore I should upgrade to the ceramic discs)!!!! Now I accept that these there is significantly more wear on tracks and that the 996 is quite a heavy car and it's also dependant upon how you drive the car etc. etc. But I ran my 360 for 20,000 miles with numerous track days before having to replace discs (I know the 360 is lighter too) But this is a little ridiculous in my opinion. I have also been told by the dealer that if they replace everything this week and I do a track day this w/e then the chances are they'll have to replace everything again next week!!! Any thoughts?!

[dazren]

Absolute rubbish. Stay away from PCCB if you are into trackdays. A number of people on rennlist.com have had problems with them and porsche no longer market the PCCB discs as lasting the life of the car.

This thread may be of interest.

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?f=48&h=&t=34201

DAZ

[clubsport]

Charlie, go to the 996TT GT2/3 forums on www.rennlist.com...there is a lot of chat on PCCB across the pond.Some court action etc...it appears the PCCB boys are going back to steel discs for track days.

[seandudding]

Charlie

I had a similar issue with the brakes on my GT3. The only noticable effect was cracking around the holes on the discs. I had done several track days and 3000 mile son these. Also the pad material had discoloured.

There was no noticable effect on the braking characteristics. I think it's just OPC's trying to cash in on this.

If I was you I'd just ignore what they say. As long as the cracks don't connect between holes, or reach the outside of the disc you should be fine. As for the pad material changing colour, guess this is due to the heat going through them.

I had mine changed, and after 2 track days this past weekend, there are a few little cracks already. But I'm not to worried about this now.

I read somewhere that the reason disc crack is due to the fact that the manufacturer of the disc's don't bake them for long enough anymore, thus saving them money.

Cheers

Sean

[argonaut]

charlie360 said:

Hi all - I'm just wondering if anybody else has had similar experiences on the brakes. I am just having the car serviced now prior to an RMA track day at Bedford on Saturday and the dealer has told me that I need to have new discs and pads all round as the old ones are cooked. Since they last gave the car a full check over and sold it to me I've done around 4,000 miles and done a very wet session at Bruntingthorpe which didn't really envolve much heavy braking - so I was rather surprised at this. Apparently Porsche claim that you are likely to need a full set of discs and pads every track day you do (and therefore I should upgrade to the ceramic discs)!!!! Now I accept that these there is significantly more wear on tracks and that the 996 is quite a heavy car and it's also dependant upon how you drive the car etc. etc. But I ran my 360 for 20,000 miles with numerous track days before having to replace discs (I know the 360 is lighter too) But this is a little ridiculous in my opinion. I have also been told by the dealer that if they replace everything this week and I do a track day this w/e then the chances are they'll have to replace everything again next week!!! Any thoughts?!

...to use a technical term - that's cr@p! You don't say exactly what's wrong with the discs - probably overly 'scored' as opposed to cracked, but they should last longer than one trackday. My discs (on a C4, not a turbo, mind) lasted one track day and 40k varied road miles before needing replacement (couple of weeks ago). However, it may depend on how much you 'abuse' the brakes while at the track - although the border between hard driving and abuse is tricky to define.

These are supposed to be finely honed sports cars - not souped up shopping trolleys!

Agree with prior comments on the ceramics - waste of money.

[grant3]

Charlie I have to agree with you, can't see how the pads & discs should wear out that quickly. Last but one 996 I had did over 30k of Hard (although not track)driving on the original pads & discs.
How many miles has the car done in total ?

[dazren]

Charlie.

Is the OPC suggesting changing all 4 corners. When I first had this problem it was only the fronts that needed changing.

DAZ

[charlie360]

Thanks for earlier comments - to answer a few questions in no particular order - firstly I've had more talks with the dealer. As to the current state of the brakes; the discs are not scored and they are within the depth tolerances, plus the cracks are no more than about 3mm long, additionally the pads have plenty of depth left on them, however the pads are apparently discoloured and showing small cracks - signs of overheating. I then asked if they felt they were in a dangerous or unroadworthy state to which they've replied no - they think they will last for a while - so I'm not changing them (at this point I have to concur with a comment that Daz made somewhere about never experiencing any fade - I haven't either) The car has now done a total of just over 20,000 miles so I agree yes it will be due atleast some new front discs soon. However my original posting was made more from the perspective that PGB had suggested that all should be changed now and that they should all be changed again (if standard replacements were used) again after one track day - which I thought and still think is outrageous! I will go to Bedford on Saturday and see how the dear old anchors hold up - you'll all be sure to hear about it if they don't!!

[Melv]

Usual dealer bollox, I must say.

I came to think whilst using OPC's that their policy was to replace anything that they thought wouldn't last to the next annual service, even if it had plenty of time/wear/miles left in it.

I've done about 6,000miles on the Cup Car, possibly about 1500 on road one one pair of front discs. Only on the last two track days did I notice that the cracks on the outer holes extended up and over the edge of the discs. There was absolutely no degradation in braking performance and all the pessimists that said the discs would explode were wrong!!

BTW, has anybody ever heard of discs breaking up?

Melv

[meldrewlives]

Entirely agree re OPC, my policy now is to double and triple check anything they tell me. Don't know why they don't realise that losing a customer's confidence is a FUNDAMENTAL error which is likely to cost them lots of money over the years not least in determining what car I buy next (thinking about RS6 does that get me excommunicated??).

Just changed my rotors at 40,000 (no track work)and about 18 months after they tried to persuade me that it needed doing. They were a m/m or two within tolerance and pads still had about half their depth. Definite improvement in braking tho.

[mart1n]

My 996TT has done just short of 20k miles including loads of track days, during this time I have replaced the pads twice and the discs once. Both sets of discs developed small cracks from the holes and the current set will probably need changing soon.

I’ll be at Bedford on Saturday too Charlie so we can compare notes then if you want.

[charlie360]

Martin, look forward to meeting you - I'll be there with my black 996 TT and a friend with a black 996 C4 and my brother with his rather modified blue Noble M12.