Ceramic Brakes

[SR71]

Good points BOGR32 but those cars tend to have owners who aren't bothered by having to shell out £7K for replacements...

I on the other hand budget for Redbulls....

[sonny]

Personally, I'd think hard about whether or not ceramics were a liability rather than a bonus.

Like you say, you'd be pi**ed if a dodgy pad starting scoring the rotor or you got some foreign object damage to it a couple of months after shelling out ~£7K.

And its going to be a lot harder getting ceramics replaced under warranty compared to steels, even if you do feel your claim is justified. I can see Audi thinking up all kinds of excuses not to have to shell out for these...

The clincher for me, is that if the guys down at Audi Driving Experience don't use "ceramic-ed" cars, whose cars are hammered day in day out, why not?

Just a thought, if you had the after market Ceramics fitted from a non Audi place, then would they still fall under the Audi warranty for what ever reason some thing did go wrong with them, or would they totally wash there hands with it as its a off the shelf modification?

[BOGR32]

I think you should get some sort of warranty. Whether from Audi or from the shop that you bought them from I don't know. But, as good as they are, if they wouldn't have come with the car (I bought my RS4 second hand), I don't think I would pay that amount of money to retrofit them. There are other options out there, cheaper and as good as them, that deserve the atention.

[P_G]

Just a thought, if you had the after market Ceramics fitted from a non Audi place, then would they still fall under the Audi warranty for what ever reason some thing did go wrong with them, or would they totally wash there hands with it as its a off the shelf modification?

If you buy Audi parts from Audi and fit them yourself / third party then there is no warranty cover as they tend to suggest it is to do with your fitting of them. This is what I got when I retro fitted the B7 RS4 front disks / caliper assembly to my B6 S4 and the disks warped.

[sonny]

ok, what about if you took out a new warranty and declared it, would it then be covered, any way the dealers would find out, how about if you was to "bluff" it had say it was fitted to the car when purchased!..just a cheap skate idea lol (suppose it would have the unique stamp in front of the service book of it was a FF option!

[rs4v8]

Nearly seven grand for ceramics? If you bought a car with them on, if you did track days or if you've more money than sense fair enough. Standard brakes seem plenty strong enough to me especially for road use.

Sorry guys, but I'm thinking GSXR1000 for that money!!

I'm sure I read somewhere that someone was working on a non-audi carbon upgrade kit which was considerably cheaper.

See this FYI. http://www.autoblog.com/2006/12/22/carb ... the-peons/

[P_G]

ok, what about if you took out a new warranty and declared it, would it then be covered, any way the dealers would find out, how about if you was to "bluff" it had say it was fitted to the car when purchased!..just a cheap skate idea lol (suppose it would have the unique stamp in front of the service book of it was a FF option!

Nail on head, the car is logged with what equipment it has. I also retrofitted RNS-E to my S4 and was asked to put the Concert II headunit back in again before I p/x'ed it against my RS4!

[SR71]

If you buy Audi parts from Audi and fit them yourself / third party then there is no warranty cover as they tend to suggest it is to do with your fitting of them. This is what I got when I retro fitted the B7 RS4 front disks / caliper assembly to my B6 S4 and the disks warped.

P_G,

This is absolutely not true. I imagine you were not covered because you were "mixing" parts from different cars.

The RS4 is not excluded from the warranty block exemption.

I know because I have spoken directly with Audi HQ about this.

This means that you can get your Audi serviced anywhere and as long as Audi parts and procedures are used, you are covered by the warranty. The same should apply to any work you do on your car with the above caveat(s).

Once you start fitting non-Audi parts and do not comply with non-Audi procedures you are asking for trouble.

However, in this case, you always have the warranty attached to the part to fall back on, and/or, if you can prove a shop did not follow procedures for that part, access to appropriate redress...

In the case of retro-fitting Audi OEM ceramic rotors etc. if I was that bothered, I'd get a copy of the Audi procedure for fitting, and take it down my local specialist to follow.

Your warranty cannot be invalidated in these circumstances.