Brakes, what do I need?

I've been pricing up a new set of discs and pads all round for my 04 C2 below is a table of the various prices around. The Porsche price shown also shows the 10% members discount. In fact the all in price was a little less at £822.37 inc VAT as I got offered a bit more than 10% on some of the extras. The Euro Carparts prices show the Genuine then three different makes of disc OEM/Sebro/ATE each with Textar pads I'm not sure of the make of the parts at Berlyn Services. They show Porsche part numbers but I don't think they can be genuine discs and pads (not at those prices) The best price for Genuine bits appeared to be Ramus Porscha who I'd never heard of (anyone used them?) It's quite confusing with all the extra bits that are recommended to be changed at the same time with the various names i.e. anti-squeal, anti-vibration, damper disc, damper plate etc. How much of the extras can you expect to be able to reuse?

Good effort.[ ] Don't bother with new wear sensors unless your pad warning light has come on, they are re-useable. I would buy new anti-squeal shims (aka dampers/damper plates/ anti-vibration etc), as they don't tend to work well again on new pads (from experience) and you don't want to hear squealing brakes then have to strip it all off again for how much they cost. I've used Sebro disks and Textar pads several times before (on my previous '02 996 C4) from ECP and they have been great. The pads are AFAIK identical to the Porsche genuine items but not in Porsche boxing. You don't have to buy new bolts.

As Rod says

Ditto, ditto

You know what? - Theres probably enough of us out there that do this job ourselves and if you plan to keep your car for any period of time and you aint doing it soon you will probably need to do it in the not to distant future. This is probably a stupid suggestion but if those who want to do their own brakes got together I wonder if there is anyone out there who would discount a bulk order enough to make it worth while? I am on my 3rd Porsche and about to do my 3rd brake & Disc job. If I wasn't about to do it and there was a chance I could buy the complete "kit" at a discount I would probably buy it and stick it on the shelf in readiness for when I did. Anyone a drinking buddy of a Porsche parts supplier?

I've added a few more suppliers. Obviously if your thinking of purchasing yourself you'll need to check the prices first as there's no guarantee I've got it right. Now listing Porsche Eurocarparts Design 911 Type 911 Jasmine JZM Porsche Shop Berlyn Services Ramus Porscha Brake Part Superstore If anyone knows any more let us know. I'm leaning towards the Design 911 Sebro/Textar Front and Rear packages priced at £444 inc VAT + Postage for both it appears to be a good price for non genuine parts

I used these http://www.marque21.co.uk/parts_brakediscs01.html

[FONT=courier new"] Their prices look good and reasonable postage too. I'll add them to the table on Monday on my return to work ;-) [FONT=courier new"] [FONT=courier new"] Marque 21 [FONT=courier new"]Front discs £96.24 Rear discs £91.82 Front pads £46.50 Rear pads £40.57 Total £275.13 Total inc VAT £323.28 [FONT=courier new"] [FONT=courier new"]Front antisqueal shim x4 £32.24 Rear antisqueal shim (28mm) x4 £12.24 Rear antisqueal shim (30mm) x4 £11.88 Front brake sensor x4 £26.44 Caliper Bolts (from Porsche) £12.64 Total £95.44 Total inc VAT £112.14 [FONT=courier new"] Grand Total £435.42

Nice job Andy! When you have finished, could you email me the spreadsheet, and I'll convert it to pdf and add it to the "Useful Part Numbers" thread in the Technical Articles section. It would be nice to have a permanent record of all your research.

Thanks Andy for posting all your research, mine are in need of doing very very soon. I don't know if it's of any help to anyone but I work less then 10 mins away from Design 911, I've not used them yet as my car has always been under warranty and been in to OPC's but this year the warranty runs out and will most likely be getting them to service my car. I can always go along and see if I can get some kind of deal from them, if there are a few people interested?

I did the brakes all round on my 996 C2 - easiest car Ive ever changed the brakes on. As above, kept the original squeal pads - just use a thin blade to remove and refit. Changed disks and pads all round, kept the wear sensors since they hadnt been adraised. I sourced all the parts from GSF who were the cheapest - all OE parts just without the porsche branding. Remember also its adviable to bleed the system through once done, which needs a helper to press the pedals and also to remember to bleed both sides of each caliper. Doing this all round will by default also change fully the brake fluid, which is advisable every couple of years at least. Price all in for the parts was about 300 including disks and fluid, took about 4 hours to do the whole car - that was going slow and carefully, since it was the first time id jacked the car up. There is a site, where you can download the porsche service manuals which will help a great deal with this sort of job. let me know if you cant find the link. Jon

http://www.cannell.co.uk/Manuals.htm They are a bit out of date, and there are a few missing links and bookmarks, but better than nothing.

It's been all quiet on the brakes news front as I was trying to get some info from one of the suppliers but gave up in the end and finally just ordered the bits. I've updated the table to include some new suppliers and show what I bought. In the end I went for:- All prices inc VAT [FONT=courier new"] amtex Zimmerman Front Discs £105.00 [FONT=courier new"] Marque 21 Rear Discs & all Textar Pads £210.20 [FONT=courier new"] Marque 21 Shims no sensors or bolts £66.22 [FONT=courier new"]Total Postage £20.01 [FONT=courier new"] £401.43 [FONT=courier new"] I noticed Item 300216798405 on a trawl of eBay. amtex it appears are the eBay arm of GSF and AFAIK Zimmerman are proper Porsche O.E. So I took a printout and headed down to my local GSF to see if they would match the price and perhaps do a equally good price on the rear discs and pads. The guy at the local GSF didn't even know about amtex and was surprised at the prices as these where below his lowest trade price (he turned the screen round to show me). So he wasn't able to get anywhere near. Next I tried to contact amtex via eBay to see if they could do the rear Zimmerman discs (as GSF do). But after 3 attempts and one reply to a question I didn't ask I gave up. So I'll see what turns up and have a go at fitting it all. Edit by Richard: I have put a more 'permanent' copy of the spreadsheet <HERE>

Well the saga continues. Marque 21 didn't have the rear discs in stock. Apparently there's a problem with a drilling machine at the suppliers in Germany and none of the suppliers can get stock of these unbranded OEM rear discs. Certainly Euro Carparts don't have any stock. So in the end I managed to get set of Zimmerman rears discs from my local GSF (so no postage) for £54 each +VAT so £126.90 inc VAT which is about £19 more than the Marque 21 unbranded OEM price I know I could get away with it but for the price I caved in and also got the local OPC to send me a set of 8 Caliper Bolts for about £13 all in.