hey. Not sure if it’s in my head but my brakes seems to be making more noise than usual. I’m wondering if my pads are due to be replaced. I know it’s a bit of a “how long is a piece of string “ type question as this can vary from person to person, but what life did you get from your first set? Car will be 3 years old come September.
Brake pad life.
- Thread starter davieg
- Start date
Not an Audi but I owned 4 minis prior to my a3 all up to about 35k miles and never had pads replaced on any of them.
PanamaS3
Registered User
has anyone driven past you silently shouting and pointing frantically at the sparks flying up from your wheels? if not, you are ok 
I had almost 80k on my 2006 A3 original brakes. I’m at 35k on my 2016 A3 e-tron and I still have 10mm on both front and rear. That means this car should easily make it to 100k if I drive the same. BUT mine is an e-tron
With the e-tron it’s likely due to the way they apply the brakes, as they are very aggressive when it comes to brake regeneration, the motor does most of the braking, the mechanical brakes are only really used to bring the car to a complete stop. Some manufacturers are actually going to remove the brake pedal from what I’ve heard
Many main dealers (not just Audi) seem to be recommending nowadays that discs are always changed at the same time as pads. The old rule-of-thumb always used to be that discs would be changed on every 2nd pad change.
Just chopped in my S3 after 51k miles and 3.5 years. At last service the dealer said the pads and discs would need changing at the next service at 54k miles. But, as said above it depends an awful lot on driving style and typical use. ie mile for mile, motorway work should be far easier on the brakes than driving around town all day.
