Can't wait for Ian to finish baking my XP10 front pads!

[Shoppinit]

Probably about 2kg a set. Quite heavy. They'll love you at security.

[Mr V10]

The latest is that i don't think Ed can get them to me in time anyway, one week lead time. Asked for a price on shipping to the UK though.
I hope security leave me alone, I've pulled all the strings with my airline and have personally spoken to the highest person responsible for check in baggage for our airline in the USA. She has assured me it will be ok and I can contact her if not, notes against my flight to allow for it as I'm staff, but she did say security could mess up my plans, keep them crossed for me. I'm driving Amanda's car tomorrow and if I like the Hotchkiss, I'll order them as soon as I'm off the plane.

[chunky79]

Have a goodun amar. Don't forget i'm back over there later in the year so if you manage to get 1 set back and want more i may be able to get some

[Mr Footlong]

Right, final update time. My XP10 pads came off the car today and near-infamous £23 Pagids went on.

Sadly in my situation at least, the plus side of these pads which is the stupidly good braking, was outweighed by the constant squealing, grinding and noise they made while driving along when not on the brakes, as if they were catching high spots on the discs. I have to say right now that I am not discounting that in my opinion the calipers are pretty tired, may have possible not been retracting the pads fully or applying pressure 100% evenly across the braking surfaces etc.

I bedded these pads in exactly as they should have been bedded in, took them for almost weekly cleaning runs, kept the holes in the discs clean when possible and hammered the hell out of them on almost every drive, to the point that I actually lost count of how many times I had boiled the brake fluid when out having fun and ended up sailing past the house when coming to a stop. Seeing mild/moderate smoke coming up from the brakes was a pretty common occurrence too. I really didn't drive these brakes like a bint at all.

When constantly 'attacking', the pads delivered over and over, giving phenomenal bite with every push of the pedal, at least to the point where the fluid gave up!

Sadly the squealing & grinding when braking at almost anything other than flat out to full stop braking got worse and worse, and constant 'squeak squeak squeak while driving along (at anything up to around 70mph you could still hear it through the open windows) got worse too. It was at this point that I bit the bullet and started down the path of the custom C6 front upgrade.

While up at MRC 2 weeks ago I asked the guys to check the pads/discs over quickly while changing the fluid to Super Blue. They took the car out for a test drive and I said to really stamp on the pads if possible. They got back and one of the guys sheepishly peered around the door and was telling Doug that my front brakes were clearly broken, felt awful and he was convinced that metal was grinding against metal. He said he was scared to brake as the noise coming from the brakes sounded like they wanted to tear themselves apart. All I said was "welcome to my world". They confirmed that as the heat built up in to the pads, the more noise they were making.

I laid the car up last week and refused to drive it until the pads were off as I just couldn't take it any more... Sadly I have no willpower thoughso was out in it 2 days later and then repeatedly this week, grinning every time that I planted the loud pedal then frowning/grimacing/grinding my teeth/screaming/wanting to cry like a little bitch almost every time that I was coming to a stop...

Shopp lovingly sent over my £23 Pagids from Frenchland and I slapped them on today. Bedded them in, pooing it in disbelief at the difference every time I slammed on the anchors as when doing that with the XP10's the car stopped on a dime. Let them cool then took them out again and I am saying this with 100% honesty, OE C5 pads are god awful compared to hardcore pads, the difference is totally night & day. I actually think that pads made from geologically compressed Blancmange could rival the OE ones.

HOWEVER, not one squeal, squeak, mutter, fart or burble from the brakes whatsoever. They did everything in total and utter silence. While I am gutted that I am going to have to tone down my driving accordingly until brakes 2.0 is completed, I can just brake, like every other bastard on the road, without my noggin wanting to frikking explode and me want to turn invisible so nobody stares at me again like a pikey driving a banger.

I did about 2.5-3k miles on these pads I think and while they have done an excellent job of eating in to the discs, they look like they have hardly worn in my opinion, which is quite a feat considering the repeated heavy heat cycles I was putting through them. I noticed hairline cracks through the entire disc on both sides when quickly scanning them, I will no if they are superficial or full cracks once the discs are off.

I simply cannot recommend these highly enough for either track days or drag strip runs or anything else requiring near-ungodly braking power compared to OE offerings on these cars. However, in my experience with these (quite possibly with external factors like tired calipers); I simply cannot recommend them as daily driver pads. I know that Mart is going to disagree with me on this one as we already have but there are quite possibly other factors clouding my experience with them. The fact of the matter is that everyone who drove the car thought that the brakes were broken and as a result, nobody wanted to drive my car anymore, including me.

I will see if the £23 Pagids improve but I fear that I am at the ceiling of their performance and the XP10s really did spoil me, when not killing all of my senses and people unlucky enough to be outside the car when stopping!

I will be selling tghe XP10 pads when I get around to it if anyone is interested.

[Mr V10]

Nick, did the rear XP10 pads squeal? Also, a note to people wanting to buy Nick's XP10s. I've already called first dibs on his rear discs and pads. Sorry to mention it again.

Edit: I feel like a real n0b writing such a teeny tiny message when you posted that big essay. Thanks for the write up, very well written and helpful.

[Mr Footlong]

I didn't get XP10 rears, just fitted new new OE rear pads from the same helpful chaps that provided the discs all round, their Ebay name eludes me currently. Ah, Dsgwagen if memory serves.

[Mr V10]

Just the discs then pal, I'm going to get genuine Audi rear pads.

[Mr Footlong]

It is looking pretty likely that I will be keeping the rear discs Amar as part of the upgrade. I think that 4 pot calipers on the rear are going to upset the brake balance so am looking at keeping the 335 rears and mating them to a seperate handbrake caliper that will be machined to the rear and a 2 pot caliper from the likes of Brembo. Should that change and I end up skimming the fronts and fitting them on the rear if possibe, you shall be the first to know.

[Mr V10]

Thanks, Nick. Yep, let me know. I reckon I'll replace with new ones in that case within the month or so though, I'll let you know if I do.

[thetyrant]

Sorry to hear the pads havent worked out in the long term for you, if i remember right i did express concerns to you before purchase that you might not be able to live with the issues of noise and dust etc, but you were keen to sacrifce comfort of road pads for the stopping power of an all out race pad like XP10, as is often the case it always hard to appreciate downsides until you have to live with them yourself, there is always a compromise when increasing performance and unfortunatley with brakes it usually noise and dust
Maybe something like our road compound Bobcat 1521 would work for you, good improvment over oem spec pads with nice bite and stopping power along with low noise and dust, downside to Bobcat is they are not that much cheaper than XP series pads to make

Cheers
Ian

[Mr Footlong]

No need to apologize Ian as you were excellent throughout and these pads do exactly what they are supposed to do, give monstrous braking performance when compared to normal offerings for our cars.

I knew that it was a gamble but it was one that I decided to take and sadly it didn't work out. mart and I have had recent email discussions and his experience differs from mine mostly or his negative points are to a far lesser degree than mine. Don't forget that I have also said that my calipers look/feel pretty damn tired so I am not saying that they aren’t playing a factor in it as I genuinely think that they could well be.

As I wrote in my snoozefest post above, I love the actual braking performance (tear your face off good when you plant the anchors, rinse and repeat), I can't stress enough just how much these improved the braking performance on these turbonutterbarges over the OE/Mintex fair, stopping distances and were vastly improved for me, feedback was greatly improved, everything was a huge leap for the better. The only problems were the noise and grinding (at lower speeds) feel throughout the car when braking most of the time but again, my negative experience seems to be greatly exaggerated when compared to Mart.

If I was keeping these C5 revision calipers and was going on a track, I would want these puppies on every single time as they are just that good and I have had a good few sets of custom uprated brake/pad setups in the past so like to think that I have half a clue when it comes to driving like you stole it. As it stands, with the new setup, if it isn't as good as these are when needed, I will be in contact about some slightly more 'fluffy' pads sir.

Not ass kissing guys, just saying it how I feel it.

[Mr V10]

Footers, Carbotech do the bobcat pads for the C6 6 piston setup. Speaking to Ian about getting me a set. I know OEM are fine but what the heck.

[Mr Footlong]

I will wait until I have tried the C6 OE brembo pads on the custom setup before I jump ship again. If I can get the same prerformance with the hybrid setup tjhat will be fine but if they don't come close to matching what I had with these then the wallet will be popping out again. Spending money at a rate of knots atm. I bought a Herman Miller Mirra chair at the drop of a hat this morning....... Very nice though.

[Mr V10]

Just looked it up, that chair cost more than my Punto - which did 67 MPG on the way to work today, little thing keeps on going and going, it currently stops better than my RS6 too.

[Mr Footlong]

Hypermiling poof.