Hey all, i am a first time Audi owner i purchased the new RSQ3 Vorsprung edition in april. While it is a Awesome car i am having problems with loud squeaky breaks happens almost every time i drive once car is warm. Audi have advised its common for brand new cars advised to do some heavy braking once at speed but still happens. It is driving me insane now any advise welcome?
RSQ3 Squeaky brakes RSQ3
- Thread starter Jhc2903
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Fit some EBC redstuff pads and the noise will be gone. On top of that you'll get better braking, minimum dust and minimum wear on the expensive discs....it's a no hrainer!
Yup, common RS problem, you most likely drive the car in town a fair bit and the pads have a shiny glazed surface. Yes, as the dealer has suggested some fierce brake use will get rid of the glaze for a bit but the squeak will come back.
Ju's suggestion of fitting EBC Redstuffs will fix it with all the benefits he has described (I have them in mine too - both ends). Call EBC and ask, the part number isn't in the catalogue yet and I had mine 7 or 8 months ago.
Having used EBC Redstuff on my old RS3 8P and 5 8V owners I know that tried them and hated them (one actually said he thought they were dangerous) I wouldn’t touch em with a barge pole.
Plenty of alternative pads, Ferodo are a good starting point.
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Yup, the old pub folklore story that EBC Redstuffs are poor - usually written by muppets who don't have real-world practical experience but heard from a mate of a mate.
I've used them in the last 3x RSQ3s including the current F3 and they are truly excellent, I also installed them in a B9 RS4 which improved the otherwise distinctly average braking performance. There are many RSQ3 owners over on the Q3 Ownersclub forum, enjoying the benefits.
You'll install EBC Redstuffs for several reasons:
1) Much improved initial 'grab' hot or cold
2) Low disc wear - use OEM pads and you'll need new disc rotors at 30,000 miles at north of £600 a pair. RedStuffs polish the discs like mirrors but don't chew the surfaces. The discs have a 1mm wear limit off each face (2mm in total disc thickness) - that isn't much.
3) Low dust, and what there is washes away with water
4) They are silent, the squeaking/graunchy noises of OEM pads are banished.
I've used them in the last 3x RSQ3s including the current F3 and they are truly excellent, I also installed them in a B9 RS4 which improved the otherwise distinctly average braking performance. There are many RSQ3 owners over on the Q3 Ownersclub forum, enjoying the benefits.
You'll install EBC Redstuffs for several reasons:
1) Much improved initial 'grab' hot or cold
2) Low disc wear - use OEM pads and you'll need new disc rotors at 30,000 miles at north of £600 a pair. RedStuffs polish the discs like mirrors but don't chew the surfaces. The discs have a 1mm wear limit off each face (2mm in total disc thickness) - that isn't much.
3) Low dust, and what there is washes away with water
4) They are silent, the squeaking/graunchy noises of OEM pads are banished.
No ‘pub’ folklore here……..
My own experience was poor as was the other 5 RS3 8V owners, all who’s cars I’ve seen and done work on, so no ‘mate of a mate’ scenario here.
Edit….
‘Polished’ discs. Why do you think that happens
‘New discs at 30,000 miles’ lol if you think that’s bad on a performance model then you are talking rubbish.
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I can only give you my experience of the redstuff pads on my RSQ3 over the last 1-2k miles.
The dealer fitted new discs and pads as part of the approved used scheme prior to purchase and I swapped the pads out with less than 1k done on that setup.
The biggest difference I noticed between the OEM and redstuff pads is dust. There is a lot of dust with the OEM pads and barely any with the redstuff ones.
I could also tell straight away the redstuff pads had more bite and in 1k miles I've not had any noises that I had started getting with the OEM pads.
What I can't quantify is the difference in wear on the discs as I have no personal experience to guage from but from what other RSQ3 owners have said I'm willing to believe they will last longer.
The dealer fitted new discs and pads as part of the approved used scheme prior to purchase and I swapped the pads out with less than 1k done on that setup.
The biggest difference I noticed between the OEM and redstuff pads is dust. There is a lot of dust with the OEM pads and barely any with the redstuff ones.
I could also tell straight away the redstuff pads had more bite and in 1k miles I've not had any noises that I had started getting with the OEM pads.
What I can't quantify is the difference in wear on the discs as I have no personal experience to guage from but from what other RSQ3 owners have said I'm willing to believe they will last longer.
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The EBC Redstuff pads have been a thorny subject for fair a while on the Audi RS forums. The reason for this is that many owners who were frustrated by the annoying squeaking and fade prone stock brakes ended up searching for alternatives. I was one of those owners. The Redstuff pads had the convenience of a wear sensor included and seemed a logical swap given the price and some good reviews.
Initially they felt better than the stock pads and seemed to resist fade much better (as many of you Redstuff advocates also report). However, it wasn't until I really got used to the car and began to drive it harder (I went to an owners club track day) that my opinion of the Redstuff pads changed. The brakes started to get very hot and the stopping power diminished, the disc surfaces went shiny like a mirror (as you also described). Several weeks later in Banbury I had a scary moment approaching a roundabout where the car wouldn't stop and the brakes made a hell of a noise. The disc surfaces were polished to almost mirror finish. I am not the only 'muppet' to have experienced this with Redstuff pads.
The Redstuff pads seem to work ok for everyday driving for anyone that drives their car at 80% of it's ability and I will concede that they are probably better than the stock pads (not too difficult to do). By the information you have posted you probably fall into this category because you seem to be able to make a set of stock discs last over 30k miles so are obviously not regularly using the brakes hard at all.
But for those of us that like to drive the car closer to it's full potential, maybe upgrade the performance with a remap or enjoy the odd track day, then the Redstuff pads will irreversibly glaze your discs and give you a brown trouser moment. This is the reason for those of us that have a different opinion on the Redstuff pads.
I guess it all boils down to what your intended use for the car is.
EBC market different grades of pad depending on the intended use and if your driving is leaning towards a faster track pad then redstuff as well as OEM pads are probably not the pad for you.
An RSQ3 is never going to be a track weapon in the way an RS3 is and so the buyer is more likely to be, dare I say it, a more reserved driver.
I know I will never explore the last 20% of my cars performance so the redstuff pads are an upgrade for me in lots of ways
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Indeed Brian
You are one of the actual RS3 8V owners I was referring too, not one of the muppets who heard it from a friend of a friend
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Yeah a bit too much of the...... 'I heard that....' on here sometimes. I dread to think how much money and time you and I have spent of experimenting with pads and brake discs for the RS...not to mention the tyres. Lol. Defo don't tell the missus.Indeed Brian
You are one of the actual RS3 8V owners I was referring too, not one of the muppets who heard it from a friend of a friend
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The Redstuff pads are probably fine for those that give the car the occasional naughty squirt around the local A road and use it for the daily commute (which is why some say they are fine on their cars) but for the ones that like to remap their car, sprint for fast draggy times or occasional track use etc then I wouldn't recommend them at all.
A fair point, RSQ3s are not the typical sprint or track use tool, with a higher CoG there is only so far you can push it. I don't think even EBC themselves would suggest Redstuffs for that, for regular A road use however they have proven to be excellent and I do drive mine 'quite quickly'. The inde (The Phirm) that fitted the Redstuffs to the last RSQ3 Performance actually asked if I planned to use the car for race type activities in which case they wouldn't fit them - for road use they were happy.
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Yep that pretty much confirms what I said and the experience of many of other owners who have upgraded the performance on their cars. Doug from MRC was actually in the passenger seat data logging when my brakes faded badly after a couple of hard WOT pulls (you could see your face in the polished discs when we stopped to take a look). When I told him which pads were fitted he refused to get in the car until I had changed them. Same thing happened to some owners club members also running Redstuff pads several weeks later at a track day event.
But there have been other owners who have fitted Redstuff who are not so brave on the brake pedal (or throttle) and drive the car with more sympathy and find them better than OEM for the type of driving they do. They eventually still glaze/polish the discs though.
Mine were polished to a mirror finish on the 8P.
No track work but I found them to cause severe vibration after a few days of use, they also completely lost their impressive initial bite, you’d press the pedal at any speed and wondered if they would haul the car up.
When I spoke to another brake specialist he compared it to sandpaper, you get a piece of 60 grit and try move it across a piece of wood and it grips because of the friction the extremely rough particles cause in the paper, now go do that with a piece of 1000 grit paper across the same wood and you won’t get the same resistance because the girt particles are a lot smaller, he said that’s why the Redstuff were rubbish and why the discs were like a mirror because the pads were polishing them, not slowing you down.
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An impressively poor understanding of modern friction materials - so you think if something has a coarse texture then it will make a better brake pad material? If that were to be the case then stone disc pads would be all the rage and yet strangely they are not... 
Just think of a clutch drive plate in manual clutch - same idea uses a friction material to provide a progressive drive take-up until the pressure plate has squeezed the drive plate or disc to the flywheel....the flywheel will be shiny smooth.
Modern friction materials are remarkable compounds that retain consistent friction properties across a wide range of temperatures from stone cold to extremely hot - at a surface level the disc is near being vapourised hence the very fine dust. The cheaper disc pad (often found as OEM fit) materials are often found with flakes of metallic compounds and these provide for accelerated disc wear characteristics, the more expensive pad materials tend to be more ceramic in content. If we go all the way to Ceramic rotors then the life expectancy is huge - the pads are designed to provide fabulous performance without prematurely wearing the discs.
Just think of a clutch drive plate in manual clutch - same idea uses a friction material to provide a progressive drive take-up until the pressure plate has squeezed the drive plate or disc to the flywheel....the flywheel will be shiny smooth.
Modern friction materials are remarkable compounds that retain consistent friction properties across a wide range of temperatures from stone cold to extremely hot - at a surface level the disc is near being vapourised hence the very fine dust. The cheaper disc pad (often found as OEM fit) materials are often found with flakes of metallic compounds and these provide for accelerated disc wear characteristics, the more expensive pad materials tend to be more ceramic in content. If we go all the way to Ceramic rotors then the life expectancy is huge - the pads are designed to provide fabulous performance without prematurely wearing the discs.
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An impressively poor understanding of modern friction materials - so you think if something has a coarse texture then it will make a better brake pad material? If that were to be the case then stone disc pads would be all the rage and yet strangely they are not...
Just think of a clutch drive plate in manual clutch - same idea uses a friction material to provide a progressive drive take-up until the pressure plate has squeezed the drive plate or disc to the flywheel....the flywheel will be shiny smooth.
Modern friction materials are remarkable compounds that retain consistent friction properties across a wide range of temperatures from stone cold to extremely hot - at a surface level the disc is near being vapourised hence the very fine dust. The cheaper disc pad (often found as OEM fit) materials are often found with flakes of metallic compounds and these provide for accelerated disc wear characteristics, the more expensive pad materials tend to be more ceramic in content. If we go all the way to Ceramic rotors then the life expectancy is huge - the pads are designed to provide fabulous performance without prematurely wearing the discs.
An impressively poor understanding of modern friction materials - so you think if something has a coarse texture then it will make a better brake pad material? If that were to be the case then stone disc pads would be all the rage and yet strangely they are not...
Just think of a clutch drive plate in manual clutch - same idea uses a friction material to provide a progressive drive take-up until the pressure plate has squeezed the drive plate or disc to the flywheel....the flywheel will be shiny smooth.
Modern friction materials are remarkable compounds that retain consistent friction properties across a wide range of temperatures from stone cold to extremely hot - at a surface level the disc is near being vapourised hence the very fine dust. The cheaper disc pad (often found as OEM fit) materials are often found with flakes of metallic compounds and these provide for accelerated disc wear characteristics, the more expensive pad materials tend to be more ceramic in content. If we go all the way to Ceramic rotors then the life expectancy is huge - the pads are designed to provide fabulous performance without prematurely wearing the discs.
Lol ok if you say so.
His was an explanation of why the Redstuff performance drops off so dramatically / low dust / mirror polished discs, nothing to do with roughness of the pad material, but the compound itself used for the pads.
It can’t stand any type of abuse and as heat builds in the disc / pads all that happens is disc polishing and very little effective braking.
I wouldn’t mind if I was pushing the 8P RS3 particularly hard when I had zero braking, lol I wasn’t, it’s quite unnerving when you push the pedal down and get very little effect on a normal brake application.
I wouldn’t trust em at all.
But it’s each individuals own preference.
Lol people scoffed when I tried Ferodo shortly after and they were leagues better, now they are recommended by many owners, one of which was a die hard ‘Redstuff’ advocate.
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Yup, been there with the brake pedal not seeming to have any effect in the stopping department - distinctly worrying!
The last time was discovering that dashing between the roundabouts (within the speed limit) in Milton Keynes in a 2014 SQ5, there was way more performance available than the brakes could cope with, after the 5th roundabout it was all getting a bit 'marginal' on stock pads.
The last time was discovering that dashing between the roundabouts (within the speed limit) in Milton Keynes in a 2014 SQ5, there was way more performance available than the brakes could cope with, after the 5th roundabout it was all getting a bit 'marginal' on stock pads.
I’ve just had the Ferodo 2500 pads start to drop off in terms of performance and bite. Half worn and literally noticed it a few weeks back, along with low speed squeal which has started up again, this after 2 & 1/2 years of trouble free braking with them and the Reyland discs.
Interestingly Reyland have stopped recommending the DS2500 on their discs.
I’ve got a relatively new to market brake pad set (front / rear) coming to me next week to test and new Reyland discs.
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My RSQ8 squeals like a pig, especially after some spirited driving…. A good wash does the trick, as did turning up the brake disk drying adaptation via obdeleven. Apparently, it makes the pads engage more (every 6km) to dry the brakes when driving in rain- I can’t say why, but in normal driving, it makes my brakes squeal less.
