On Car Brake Disc Skim - a recommendation

[Lakers]

I understand not a universally agreed on service in this forum, however when I started to get judder when braking (B7 RS4), particularly noticeable from 50 down to 20 and getting worse I decide to look into having the front discs skimmed. (My front discs having done <15k miles and only half through the 1st set of pads).

Not so many garages provide this service on car around Basingstoke, however Hutfields of Botley nr Southampton have just invested in the latest on car disc brake lathe and skimmed my discs for a very reasonable £72. A family run general garage with a great attitude, I very much recommend them if you are in the locality and need your discs skimmed.

I had a new set of OEM pads fitted and the brakes are now perfect, lets hope they stay that way.

[mcox42]

Lakers,

What's the benefit of having them skimmed on the car as opposed to off?

Bought mine about 6 weeks ago and disks had been skimmed off the car as part of the prep before buying. Am now getting judder when breaking, but didn't for the first 3-4 weeks of owning it!

Cheers

Martin

[Reflect Russ]

On car brake skimming is for me a destructive method f contaminating the paintwork with hot fash, I have known the complete car to be covered in brake disc particles, and as its hot when it comes off it will embed into the paintwork, glass and plastics, its not a pretty site when it starts to rust nor does it feel anything less than a course piece of sand paper. if you are doing this i would make sure they cover the whole car and wheels as well because they generally sit the wheel directly under the machine, not clever realy. Hope this helps in some way although not in the way you need it to.

[bam_bam]

On car brake skimming is for me a destructive method f contaminating the paintwork with hot fash, I have known the complete car to be covered in brake disc particles, and as its hot when it comes off it will embed into the paintwork, glass and plastics, its not a pretty site when it starts to rust nor does it feel anything less than a course piece of sand paper. if you are doing this i would make sure they cover the whole car and wheels as well because they generally sit the wheel directly under the machine, not clever realy. Hope this helps in some way although not in the way you need it to.

Wow, it sounds like a cowboy operation when you look at it from that point of view.

[Lakers]

For me, the main benefit was that I didn't need the car off the road as it could be done as a while you wait service. If you read the web site for the company that supplies the lathe http://www.procuteurope.eu then you will see there arguments of skimming on car vs off. The main one is that any problems of run out caused by imperfection of the hub are also eliminated, given your history with already having the discs skimmed off car this may work for you. (Although I seem to recall that the RS4 uses floating hubs that may make this irrelevant for the RS4 set up, maybe some here can confirm that)

Although Audi dealers don't offer this as a service, a number of manufacturers including Porsche do. In trying to find a local garage to do my discs I came across these guys http://www.pmcuk.com/content.asp?id=76, I didn't use them as they are specific to Rolls and Bentley but I cannot believe they would use a procedure as risky as Russ implies given the nature of the coachwork they are dealing with, maybe they fully mask the cars as Russ suggests. He has obviously seen this occur though so I can only put that down to poor garage practice and general incompetence but then you would want to avoid that for any work done on your car.

For my own experience, I watched them work on my car, the wheels were kept well away from the lathe and the work done on mine was to a high standard with no issues to either the wheels or surrounding paintwork (not masked) and most importantly eliminated the judder. I have also had this done on a previously owned 350Z with great results.

[mcox42]

Thanks for the feedback gents. I've made the decision (as they've been previously skimmed) to bite the bullet and get new discs, pads and wheel bearings (front right is grumbling a bit anyway).

Interesting to hear different opinions on it though.

Cheers

Martin