RS4 BRAKE JUDDER

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Shuddering under light braking is going to be disc related. Either a fault or being too light on them.

Shuddering under had braking is likely to be elsewhere.

Squealing is common with pad compounds containing high amounts of ceramics. Also can happen if the pads glaze - worth trying to rebed the brakes with some 70 to 10 mph firm stops followed by a few really hard non abs ones. Then allow to cool by driving. Don't stop if possible

[coldo]

I'm glad i stumbled across this thread, i'm suffering the same issue at the moment.

I've had the wheels off and checked visually all components and they look OK. Brakes are far from new but theres meat on the pads and the discs have decent life in them.

My symptoms are EXACTLY as below...

Yep mrc have checked my wheels and so forth. The pads slide easily on mine also. My vibration is really only under braking from high speed (think: decelerating rather than "braking"). Long duration gentle pedal so slowing gently from say 130 to 70 - by 70mph it's shaking. Hard braking (HARD) and no judder whatsoever.

Are people feeling a pulsing in the peddle as well as the juddering steering wheel/horrible vibration in the cabin?

What should be my next step? Drilling the pad residue/dust out from the holes in the discs? Skimming the discs? Getting the wheels balanced?

Thanks all.

[RossDagley]

I drilled the discs which helps a lot, will be getting wheels rebalanced on new tyres later in the week and Doug keeps telling me to get the discs skimmed. But that means another set of pads so I'm putting it off!

[KernowPete]

I've had this issue on my car more or less constantly in the four years I've had it. It's had new discs and pads and I've tried every remedy recommended on here to get rid of the judder, including two disc skims, modifying driving style, scrubbing the discs with repeated hard braking etc etc etc but it even if I get rid of it, it always comes back again after a couple of thousand miles. It's got to the point now where I just live with it. I think I made a mistake when changing the knackered old discs of not cleaning up the calipers and I suspect my issue may be down to the pads not moving freely and leaving deposits on the discs as a result even when off the brakes. I will be sure to attend to that next time around and may go for non OEM discs such as phaeton discs or AP.

For anybody who suffers this annoying niggle, you have my utmost sympathy.

[Covkiller]

Yes had the same problem with my 2 RS4s. I'll let the thing shake itself to death.
And get this for strange. It's worse on the continent than the UK. Maybe our roads are so sh1t you don't notice the vibration as on the glass smooth roads in Europe. And I mean the old EEC when it had 6 members and not this bunch of muppet countries.

[coldo]

I'm glad i stumbled across this thread, i'm suffering the same issue at the moment.

I've had the wheels off and checked visually all components and they look OK. Brakes are far from new but theres meat on the pads and the discs have decent life in them.

My symptoms are EXACTLY as below...

Yep mrc have checked my wheels and so forth. The pads slide easily on mine also. My vibration is really only under braking from high speed (think: decelerating rather than "braking"). Long duration gentle pedal so slowing gently from say 130 to 70 - by 70mph it's shaking. Hard braking (HARD) and no judder whatsoever.

Are people feeling a pulsing in the peddle as well as the juddering steering wheel/horrible vibration in the cabin?

What should be my next step? Drilling the pad residue/dust out from the holes in the discs? Skimming the discs? Getting the wheels balanced?

Thanks all.

Just to follow up on this...

Spent yesterday morning drilling out the holes on my discs... a fair amount of crap came out and many holes were noticeably 'clogged'.

One thing I did find however was that when turning the OSF disc to access the holes that were inside the caliper, it seemed to turn freely for 3/4 of a revolution and was noticeably stiffer at one part - to me this suggest the disc is warped or there is a build up of baked on pad wear on the face of the disc. Cleaned it up as best i could and re-fitted wheels.

Tested........ SLIGHTLY better but the judder is still present. I then went and had the wheels balanced which I THINK helped again however it could be a placebo.

Next step for me is a skim i think, although i'm off back to work on Wednesday so the car will be garaged (and forgotten about!!) until the new year.

Worthwhile job regardless, small bits of maintenance and getting to have a proper look in and around your car goes a long way in my opinion.

[RichT128]

Sorry if this has been covered earlier but I don't fancy going back through the whole thread.

I had this problem when I first got my car, went through about 4 sets of discs and pads in short order -trying everything to fix it with audi's help - bedded them in myself, got audi to do it, had several other attempts (engine mounts replaced and various other suggested fixes from Germany that didn't work etc) before audi Germany finally confessed they'd had this problem on a "small number of cars" and while they hadn't been able to figure out the problem, the only answer they had was ceramics. Appreciate this is an expensive and unhelpful answer but that was the official audi position in late 2011/ early 2012 - and they did work.

That said, I know that the Audi master techs have since developed a theory that it may be related to wheel refurbs in some way - they used my car as a case study at one of their master tech technical updates and the guy from Doncaster came straight out and asked if the wheels had been refurb'd - which fit the circumstances of my car perfectly, as either my car was the only rs4 that had never caught a kerb in its first 2 1/2 years or the wheels had been refurbed before I bought it - we tracked the car back through the Audi network and it had no brake judder issues before I bought it but the problems started within 3 weeks of me buying it, straight after a probable refurb.

[RossDagley]

One thing I did find however was that when turning the OSF disc to access the holes that were inside the caliper, it seemed to turn freely for 3/4 of a revolution and was noticeably stiffer at one part - to me this suggest the disc is warped or there is a build up of baked on pad wear on the face of the disc. Cleaned it up as best i could and re-fitted wheels.

Discs need skimming. What happens is the pad transfers material to the disc in one (or more) areas. As the rotor swings through the caliper, the pads are forced back into the caliper by this thicker area of disc/material, and then immediately after the area of material transfer the pads are applied by the release of the hydraulic fluid just forced back by the thicker area, causing a trough in the disc after the ridge. Repeat this cycle thousands and thousands of times and you end up with a rollercoaster disc surface. You can feel these thicker/thinner sections in the disc through the peddle as judder.

[coldo]

One thing I did find however was that when turning the OSF disc to access the holes that were inside the caliper, it seemed to turn freely for 3/4 of a revolution and was noticeably stiffer at one part - to me this suggest the disc is warped or there is a build up of baked on pad wear on the face of the disc. Cleaned it up as best i could and re-fitted wheels.

Discs need skimming. What happens is the pad transfers material to the disc in one (or more) areas. As the rotor swings through the caliper, the pads are forced back into the caliper by this thicker area of disc/material, and then immediately after the area of material transfer the pads are applied by the release of the hydraulic fluid just forced back by the thicker area, causing a trough in the disc after the ridge. Repeat this cycle thousands and thousands of times and you end up with a rollercoaster disc surface. You can feel these thicker/thinner sections in the disc through the peddle as judder.

Makes perfect sense. Skim it is then!

[davers6]

Had this trouble with Evo's and my m3 csl firstly you need to clock the hub and replace if out of true if not out of true you need to make sure it's totally spotless a good 20 mins with heavy grit paper fit news discs and pads and bed them in bedding is a must a good 6 to 8 heavy pull ups and lastly NEVER hold it on the foot brake on hills or junctions that's what the handbrake is for following those rules I've never had any trouble

[Ianth]

I am having juddering issues,I have only had the car since January but do have history as follows.
22/08/12. 16735 miles.new discs/pads audi slough. £1140
07/06/13. 18618 miles. New discs/pads audi slough. F.o.c.
29/01/15. 21,303 miles.new discs/pads audi slough,f.o.c. Customer loyalty goodwill gesture.(carried out bedding in procedure by master tech according to Audi guidelines)

Now the cars done 22,500 miles and started juddering so I nipped in to my local Audi dealership (bolton)to book it in for there appraisal,its booked in tomorow but they was sort of saying that they aren't under any kind of warranty,but they will report for me to take it up with slough Audi.

So the question is if the front discs need changing again do I take it up with Audi uk or should bolton Audi take it up on my behalf? It would be a waste of time me taking it up with slough Audi as I had issues with the drc when I first bought it and they wouldn't discuss anything with me as I wasn't there customer.

Any guidance appreciated

[RossDagley]

Clearly there's something else wrong. Hub runout etc. Could even be down to refurbished wheels. What else has been checked?

[Ianth]

Clearly there's something else wrong. Hub runout etc. Could even be down to refurbished wheels. What else has been checked?

At the moment nothing.its booked in tomorrow at Audi for them to take a look.i would have expected everything else to have been checked back in January when these where supplied and fitted.

[Bogyoch]

New RS4 discs can warp in a very short time. Skimming will remove the warp and, if done correctly, the disc may stay warp-free for the rest of its life. I have my own skimming machine which bolts to the caliper eyes on the hub and takes into account any hub runout.

Do remember the other issue could be irregular pad material build-up on the disc from soft braking.

[Ianth]

I was thinking that there maybe parts warranty on these,skimming would obviously be a good option should there not be.
But with them being less than 3 months old and not even covered 1500 miles I think a skim would certainly lose any kind of warranty if indeed there is one.