Brake dampers needed and other questions

I had the winter tires removed and they measured the front pads at 2mm and the rotors looked good. Excited for I job I could do I ordered the parts. Pads, hardware, sensors, and new dampers. Also ordered micrometers so I can actually measure the rotors so I can see if they need replaced. When I look at the parts diagram from Porsche there is no mention of dampers and the pads say they are the "new" ones that have a larger mass and balance weights to help reduce noise. So did they do away with the dampers with the new pads? If the rotors are good is there anything I should do to prep them prior to new pads? Usually when swapping pads I leave the rotors alone, but have never changed front pads without rotors - usually do both at the same time, but I have swapped pads on rears without changing rotors.

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For some model years Porsche did away with the pad dampeners. Since I buy my brake hardware at the dealer parts counter I rely upon what the latest part numbers are for the brakes and if the dampeners are not listed then that's that. For a few brake jobs now without dampeners fitted I can tell you the brakes have been quiet. (Oh, I'm referring to my 2002 Boxster.) I had the brakes done on my Turbo -- I had no place to work on the car -- but I do not know if the dampeners were removed from the parts list or not. I never bothered to look at the invoice. If the rotors are in otherwise good shape you can just install the new pads and that's that. Well, you still need to do a proper brake bedding operation but nothing more. My advice when doing the brakes is to have some cans of brake cleaner handy -- budget one can per wheel --and before you disassemble the brakes lay some newspaper down and thoroughly douse the brake hardware to remove as much of the dirt/brake dust as possible. Then remove the old hardware and do another cleaning. Install the new hardware and you're good to go. The cleaner removes the brake dust from the hardware, and particularly from the piston boots. Removing the brake dust from these lessens the risk of the dust interfering with the natural tendency of the pads to retract slightly -- from piston seal hysteresis. If the pistons fail to retract this keeps the pad in light contact with the rotor and the brakes can be noisy as a result.

From experience I can tell you that the dampers are a pain the a** to deal with. I have a '99 and i just replaced pads/rotors/dampers on all 4 corners myself. If there is a solution that prevents squealing and does not use the dampers it would be great to know about it. I know that guys that track their cars dont bother with with dampers but then again they dont care about noise. I always thought that if you were going to use old rotors with new pads that you needed to resurface the rotors.

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Things may be different with the 996 brakes. I did use dampeners one time I did the brakes and I don't recall them being that hard to install. Since that first time I have not used dampeners and the brakes don't make any noise other than a light squeal -- very faint -- when moving slowly. I have found a washing of the brake hardware at a local DIY car wash stops this. The appearance of the noise has something to do with dust build up on the brake hardware is my guess. I have to note I use "factory" brake rotors and pads. I also have to note that even so I've gotten different brands of both pads and rotors. But no combination of pads/rotors I have used have ever squealed. While it is ideal to resurface the rotors not many places will do these rotors. At least I didn't find any place where I was at the time. As long as the rotors are thick enough and are in reasonably good shape so they can be reused with no concern about the rotor failing in some way, the rotor doesn't have to be resurfaced. But you must do a proper brake bed in procedure to ensure the pads and rotors make good contact and the volatile compounds in the pad are driven out by the heat of the bedding in process.

German oem rotors are very soft compound compared to others, so it makes it very hard to resurface as it might get bent while doing it. Thats why alot of places dont want to take the risk. I have had my e30 rotors done at a friends shop, they just need to take their time and go very very slow. Most other places wont do it.

I recently did my front rotors, pads, bolts, sensors, anti vibration, the lot. Never done it before and took only 2 hours. I will suggest buying new anti vibration dampers. As there is a sticky surface that will need to attach to the pad itself. Also I recon the brake dampers do give protection to the caliper gaskets. I am doing the back this weekend, hope they are as easy as the fronts were. The anti vibration dampers for the back are different from the front on a 996 C2.

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While the iron may be "soft" the rotors won't bend. If the rotor is not held properly in the brake lathe the resurfacing operation may have the rotor end up with non-parallel rotor surfaces. If this case the brakes will pulse when used. Mostly shops don't like to resurface brake rotors because the resurfacing has to clean up the rotor surfaces but not machine the rotor undersized. Another problem is rotors with holes can be hard to resurface. The holes are lined with cast iron scale which can damage the cutting tool tip. The interrupted cut can cause the rotor surface to have waves/ripples too if the machine is not rigid enough. It takes a skilled tech to do a good rotor resurfacing and the worker turn over at most auto parts stores that might have a brake lathe in the back is high enough there is no one there capable of this. There is also the concern about liability. If a shop sells you a new rotor and it fails then there is some protection offered by the maker of the rotor. If the shop resurfaces the rotor and it fails or the brakes develop a problem the shop alone is liable. (There is the shop owner's concern about one of his employees getting hurt using the thing too and to save on liability insurance the shop may just do away with the whole brake resurfacing service.) Also, there is more money in selling new rotors than resurfacing old rotors. Auto part store customers are used to being told that repairs/resurfacing of old parts is no longer condoned and one must buy new parts.

The dampers increase the cost and complexity of a 996 brake job and, in my opinion, suck. I bought them for my first 996 brake job because they were "required" and I had not yet done any work on the car... Subsequent brake servicing has not included dampers.

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+996. I left mine off when doing the brakes. Was worried about noise but after bedding the pads, no issues. You can change the pads in minutes without them.

Goes back some years but - had front brakes done at dealer and they stated that the dampers were no longer needed. Noisy at stop right off the lot, waited a few days and noise remained. Returned to dealer and the solution was to install the dampers. Replaced rotors and pads as a DIY and used new dampers, I did not have any issues installing the dampers and zero noise.

I did rear brakes last year - resurfaced oem rotors (were in spec) and installed new textar pads without the old spiders/dampers. No squeeking but after a track day - I get a lot of vibration and pulsing from the back when braking hard from high speed. I'm going to reinstall new rotors now and put the spiders on the back of the pads again. A few questions 1. Is anti squeel paste enough to provide adhesive between back of pad and damper ? 2. I read somewhere that copper anti- squeel should not be used on newer and systems - is permatex ceramic paste the best thing to use - or is there something better ? Hope that fixes my vibrations

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The vibration/pulsing probably arose from a failure to do a proper brake bedding procedure. If this isn't done and the brakes are used to stop the car from a rather high speed and the brakes remained applied the heat build up will have pad material left on the rotor surfaces. After this happens the coefficient of friction of the rotor is different where the pad material was deposited and this results in vibration/pulsing when the brakes are used. Another way to get this uneven pad material deposition is -- I found out the hard way -- is with rusty brake rotors -- I washed the car and didn't drive it afterwards to dry the brakes -- do an emergency stop and leave the brakes applied. Afterwards the brakes had a pulse to them when used lightly. I tried bedding in the brakes again but it didn't help. Thankfully the brakes were on my VW Golf not my Porsche. And because the pulsing occurred only when the brakes were lightly applied my braking style avoids this type of braking most of the time so the pulsing never really bothered me. As for your questions regarding the brake dampeners, I have no experience using any aftermarket anti-squeal stuff. I'm very reluctant to use anything other than factory hardware at the brakes because of the obvious safety critical function the brakes provide. Any paste or something like that could possibly contaminate the pads/rotors and affect braking or get on the piston boots and cause these to fail. If you want to use the pad dampeners -- even though these appear to have been dropped from the factory parts list and based on my experience at least with my Boxster do not appear to be needed as the brakes are quiet without dampeners fitted -- my advice would be to try to buy a set from a Porsche parts supplier. My thinking is it might have some still in stock. Or find some dampeners for another brand of car that you can adapt to the Porsche. I suspect the dampeners are not unique to Porsche and Audi, VW, BMW, or M-B dampeners could be made to work without much work.

Okay, I wanted to share my experience. I went from the original pads to Ferodo DS2500s, which are a dual-purpose pad with a bit of squeal. They were squealing pretty badly- I didn't care but passengers always griped. I broke down and paid the $$$$ for the dampers and just installed them. Brake pedal feel is worse now- you can tell there is a bit of play as the dampers get compressed. I'm assuming the rear ones, judging by the designs. Get the Porsche parts for the rear dampers! I bought some aftermarket ones and the spring clips DO NOT FIT. The Porsche ones popped right in, and the other ones were a ginormous PITA. That being said, the squealing that I used to get every time I touched the brakes is now 99% gone except for really hard braking.

1. There are some great youtube videos on this stuff. It's really easy. 2. I don't use dampers or wear indicators. You can usually look at wear by glancing through the openings between the spokes in the wheels depending on which wheels you have. An EZ way is if you have less meat than the metal part of the pad--time to change. 3. Great time to do a bleed. 4. Pelican and others have rotors from between $70 - $100 bucks so that makes it tough to justify resurfacing IMO. They say they're as good as OEM but worse case they're probably better than resurfaced rotors. 5. Don't forget to give the petal a few pumps before pulling out for the first time.

Yes, you can install new pads on your existing rotors. I don't use the dampers or the wear sensors because I track the car, and you can easily see how much the pads are wearing just by checking with a flashlight. But you should do a proper pad bed in after the installation.

I have done two brake pad changes and just use the old dampeners. I haven't had any problems with them.

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What is the bedding in procedure?