Recommendations for front brake replacement

Hi Guys My 996 TT is down at Chiswick for its service, got the call on Monday morning at 6am (I was in the US) asking me to please remove my tro... urm to tell me what needed fixing. £50 for a bulb, £150 for windscreen wipers, £150 for an invisible spoiler under the wheel arch, cracked coils (warranty else £400) and a minor oil leak - yet to be determined how much and if covered by warranty. They also said the front brakes needed new pads and discs and that my rear pads would need replacing soon. I can't remember what the quote was for the fronts, but over £1,000 so I thought I would be better off either going to an Indy and getting them to supply and fit, or buying genuine parts myself and taking them to a decent mechanic to fit. Any recommendations for Indys in Essex or NE London. I know there are some in NW and SW (JZ for example), but getting the car there is a pain. Else, where is the best place to buy just the parts? Cheers Oh, and I opted not to have £150 worth of windscreen wipers!

Having seen senoj's post I have looked at Euro Car Parts, they have "Genuine" and "OEM" discs which are £120 and £111 each respectively (+VAT). These also say "not for M450", are these (the M450s) the ceramics? For pads they have Textar and ATE, nothing that says OEM. My car is still under OPC warranty, so I don't want to buy anything that will invalidate that. Senoj's thread also said about replacing the shims, bolts and sensors...is that everything I would need to supply to the garage?

Are you sure they need replacing? Saying that pads and discs need replacing is standard patter from the OPC. :x I have mine booked into Northway and have been quoted £650 ish for front pads and discs. However I am opting for Textar pads which are exactly the same as the Porsche one's (and I do mean exactly not a copy) except that they don't come in a Porsche box and cost £70 less.

Thanks Dave I know what you mean about OPCs, same with every dealer. However I noted when I bought the car that the pads were worn and allowed for replacements in the price. I haven't examined the discs that closely myself, they looked "OK" to a visual inspection but I didn't use a gauge or anything to measure the thickness. I haven't seen the 996tt brakes off the car, so am a little unsure about how many components need replacing. I had imagined that the new discs were mounted to the original bells (do the turbo discs have separate bells ?), new sensors to go in with the pads. Am not sure what shims are needed though, unless these are the "squeel pads" (not my name for them!) that go in the callipers before the brake pads. I have replaced discs and pads on my own cars before now with no issues, but not sure with the Porsche, as it sounds more complicated than on other cars I have worked on, so would rather a pro do it if the discs need doing. Type 911 ( http://www.type-911.co.uk/gp_brakes.htm ) show both "OEM" and "PORSCHE" discs, are there any differences between these once you have thrown away the boxes? (Other than the £40 more you pay for the PORSCHE ones!). Same with the pads, I assume that once they are on the car the Textar ones are in distinguishable from the Porsche ones? I am not going to pay for names on boxes if the actual parts are the same (and I don't risk invalidating the warranty in any way!)

I am replacing my pads and discs this weekend. This is approx 18mths after i was first told by OPC i needed new pads and discs. :roll: I am going for Textar pads, IMHO all i will be missing is the part number stamp and Porsche box.

OK, I am slowly answering some of my own questions. Looks like the discs don't use floating bells, so are just a direct replacement. Replacement screws required are for the calipers, 77mm long on the GT3 and 72mm on the Carrera....for the TT I assume 77mm too? The shims I am still assuming are what Porsche refer to as the vibration dampers. It also says to replace the expanding spring, retaining pin and retainer at the same time as replacing the pads. All this means I need: L disc R disc 2 x sets of pads 8 vibration dampers 2 x sets of retainers 2 x wear sensors I have never had to replace the retaining pins before, is this just another Porschism for getting more money from the owner?

I think you need brake wear sensors?

Yes, forgot those when making the list, although my warning light isn't actually on yet, so it may be that I could reuse them - but for £8 or so it is probably best to replace them.

my '99 996 needed new pads and discs all round and priced them every where and finally got them at gsf which worked out cheaper than all inc euro car parts... for your info, the textar and original porsche pads are exactly the same including the textar name and the textar part number printed on both... the difference is that the actual porsche part number is printed on the oem textar box and printed on the textar pad on the original porsche part... one is £45 + vat and the other £80 + vat... guess which one i bought... also if you get the vibration pads from an opc, they are £100 in all but at gsf it works out around £40... the wear sensors are £5 each at gsf and double that at the opc... discs were zimmermann ones which are oem

Thanks Minny It does seem like a lot of extra money to pay to just have Porsche printed on the parts, if they are exactly the same. I am just worried about the warranty implications of having non Porsche parts. A few extra £ now, to potentially avoid a lot extra £ in the future would seem like a good investment. If I didn't have the OPC warranty then I would jump at the non-porsche stuff, as a lot of the time it is just as good (in this case identical) and sometimes better! I have been quoted £589+vat to supply and fit (inc. 2 hours labour @ £65), parts brake down as follows (all + VAT): Front discs £230.00 (pair) Front pads £155.23 Front sensors £11.98 (pair) Front pad shims £61.38 (set of 4) I am still umming and ahhing about getting them done at a specialist as opposed to ordering tha parts and doing it myself or at a locally friendly mechanic (I know plenty who'll do it for some beer money at the weekend!)

Personally I'd do the job myself, it's a very easy job on a Porsche and can be very rewarding.....and cheaper I've just recently done the same on my GT3 and it took about a hour or so to complete the whole job. Minimal tools are needed, the important ones being a 10mm allen socket and a torque wrench.

And now we have our old threads back.... :thumbs: :worship: have a read of this from Seagull http://www.911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=29206

Cheers guys, have all the necessary tools and a spare pair of experienced hands (my fathers). For £130+vat on the labour I will probably do it myself. Just need to find the cheapest places for all the parts as soon as I get my car back and can check the discs myself. Car is having an oil leak fixed under the warranty at the moment, don't think it is the RMS though, guy said something about having to take the head off and it being 20 hours of labour! Does anyone know difinitively whether or not using OEM but non porsche branded kit invalidates any part of the warranty? Knowing how much this oil leak would have cost to fix if it were not under warranty then I do not want to take any chances!

I dont know definitively about using non porsche parts and the warranty, but i have dics and pads from textar/brembo and OPC Chiswick didnt mention them when the had it recently for some work under warranty. My view is that if you use a non porsche part that fails and necessitates a repair, then I would think they wouldnt do it under warranty. But discs and pads failing can hardly cause something else to break that would be covered under warranty. If they failed, I suspect you would be talking to your insurers rather than OPC...

Yeah, I was thinking along similar lines. They would need to actually check the pads and discs to even know, a basic visual inspection would probably lead them to believe they were porsche parts at first glance anyway! As you say, what can they really impact on the rest of the car that would be under warranty? Where in Claam are you? I lived in Sangora Road (SW11), just up from the junction for 3 years until recently.