Alternative Discs

[Pturner3]

Dear All,

To share some information: After getting through the car's first set of discs and pads from the factory, with the awful warping, judder and squealing I decided to look for alternative parts - at reasonable prices. I am an Engineer by profession and did my research.

I settled on the following and have to say that I'm very pleased with about 5000 miles on them now. I think the setup performs better than stock...

Zimmerman Formula Z Floating Discs, Front. 100.3384.70
Zimmerman Formula Z Floating Discs, Rear. 100.3385.70
EBC Blue pads on front, DP52277NDX
Zimmerman pads on the rears. 22308.175.1


Parts came in total at GBP1100 sourced from AutoDoc and EBC Direct...

[Markp]

Helpful, thanks. Any photos of the discs, or do they just look like factory ones?

[Dannyboy123]

Dear All,

To share some information: After getting through the car's first set of discs and pads from the factory, with the awful warping, judder and squealing I decided to look for alternative parts - at reasonable prices. I am an Engineer by profession and did my research.

I settled on the following and have to say that I'm very pleased with about 5000 miles on them now. I think the setup performs better than stock...

Zimmerman Formula Z Floating Discs, Front. 100.3384.70
Zimmerman Formula Z Floating Discs, Rear. 100.3385.70
EBC Blue pads on front, DP52277NDX
Zimmerman pads on the rears. 22308.175.1


Parts came in total at GBP1100 sourced from AutoDoc and EBC Direct...

Out of interest, how long did the original discs last? And did you change the pads before the discs or did they pads last the se time as the discs?

[RS4John]

I put EBC Redstuff pads in my B9 RS4 for exactly this reason - the OEM pads chew the surface of the discs - that's the origin of most of the dust on the wheels. The Redstuffs have better initial 'grab'. low disc wear, very little dust and don't squeal - not much not to like.

Curiously the current F3 RSQ3 and the B9 RS4 share the same front disc pad - both have 6 pot calipers, though the F3s are aluminium.

[Pturner3]

The discs look identical to factory ones. Zimmerman say on their website that they use the same material composition as original equipment.

The pads were wearing quicker than the discs all around, but I wanted to change all the discs/pads together to start again fresh. The discs were all about 50% max worn at around 23000 miles. They would have required re-machining and balancing if I was to use them for another set of pads, and that would have been possible.

RS4 John: Yes interesting. I have never ventured outside withbrand such as EBC until now, but the bite is improved from cold. Not really noticed any more brake dust. The car gets minging in the winter anyway! Would buy them again.

[Pturner3]

If I found the OEM discs and Zimmerman ones at the same price, I would buy the Zimmerman ones again.

[liffy99]

Parts at £1100 ?
Wow
Just looked on the Zimmerman website and a complete set of four discs alone is just over £1600.
Then add pads . . . . guess that would take the total parts cost to over £2k ?

Did you find a special deal somewhere ?

[Jools]

I bought my replacement brake parts from the following
Pads from Autodoc 22308.175.1 & 25861.970.2 both sets £200 (Zimmerman)
Discs from Autodoc 100.3384.70 & 100.3385.70 both sets £1170 (Zimmerman)
prices inc VAT & carriage but bare in mind this was February 2022

If you download Autodoc's app you can put up with the push notifiactions, choose the right time you can get some good discounts.
I did the work my self, nothing to taxing, remember to replace, NOT reuse the caliper bracket bolts as they are tightened into their
elastic limit!

I'm not a braking expert or a weekend track warrior so I can't say if the braking is better or not than OEM.
It appears to stop just as quickly as it did before and I don't have 6K+ to drop on a set of ceramic fronts.

One recommendation, if you are doing the work yourself get a cheap puller to keep load on the disc's while you 'thump' them it will help to pop them off.

I hope this helps

Jools

[liffy99]

Ah, ok. So the parts total wasn’t £1100 but £1370.
But still a sight cheaper than todays price - over 50% increase in a year ?