Will Brembo ever learn?

[sawood12]

Slightly off topic here but sort of interesting never-the-less. I did a mate a favour yesterday and replaced the discs and pads on his Seat Leon Cupra R - the previous model with the big red 4-pot Brembo brakes. A nice easy job as these jobs are - took me an hour and a half and the Seat dealership wanted £200 for labour!, but considering this is only a 5 or 6 year old car I was shocked to notice that the fundamental design of the Brembo brake calipers were pretty much identical to the Brembo calipers on a 944T/S2, and guess what - it was suffering from pretty bad plate lift and the inner pads were seized solid. I cannot fathom why on earth Brembo - who has a reputation in the braking world, has not moved away from this design after 20yrs? Can't be a cost issue because the price the dealershop quoted him for discs and pads was as much as a 911 at an OPC and i'm sure the cost of new calipers from Seat would be comparable to what Porsche charge for theirs. Brembo must know about the issue but clearly are quite happy to allow customers to deal with the issue. If my mate had actually let the dealershop loose on this car i'm sure they would have financially shafted him to deal with the plate lift issue - I can't imagine the mech's at a Seat dealership has the ability to repair plate lift, so it would have been "Sorry sir, you have to buy a brand new pair of calipers" or they would have had to send them somewhere to get fixed.

I'm pretty sure that Porsche design the calipers for their later cars and get Brembo just to manufacture them to their design and specification (so they are not off-the-shelf Brembo calipers) and I think that Porsche Brembo calipers don't have the spring plates so don't suffer this issue.

So all I could do was to force the inner pads into the caliper as I had no tools or means to sort the issue, and tell my mate to get it sorted as soon as possible and passed on the number for a Porsche specialist who sorted plate lift on the rear calipers on my old 944T. Hopefully he'll sort it this week.

 

[TTM]

I will reply with a sarcastic "why would Brembo change the design if calipers keep selling?", but I agree this is organised extorsion.

Porsche charged a friend for all 4 caliper replacement on his 968, the bill didn't look good.

Are there aftermarket bolt-on calipers that would fit in place of the originals?

 

[sawood12]

I did suggest that I would look into the possibility of retrofitting Boxster calipers but he was not interested in any modification options. Having said that if he can get the plate lift sorted for a couple of hundred quid then that will come in cheaper than buying a tatty pair of calipers off ebay and maybe any bracket conversions if needed.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: TTM

Are there aftermarket bolt-on calipers that would fit in place of the originals?

Yes CompBrake as sold by EMC and on ebay, they look a lot like Brembo copies to me. The ideal solution for those with very deep pockets would be to develop an AP racing setup but as I haven't seen one yet for our cars this would likely involve a lot of early adopter type issues.

 

[os951]

Because of the structure of the 951 calipers i have updated to GT2 Monoblocks which are far better designed calipers than original ones. I suppose Brembo finally learned how to fabricate decent calipers.

 

[Hilux]

If you know a good machine shop and are handy with highly accurate measuring you can fit anything you like with adapter blocks/plates.

 

[Frenchy]

I had issues with the inner pads also, outers were fine, is this a trend ie inners ?

 

[DivineE]

I actually have my suspicions that this is still a problem in some newer Porsche calipers too. It seems they have 'solved' it by adding plates and screws to the service schedule along with brake disks/pads. I will have a look at mine when I change the pads next but at a guess the design is still the same.

 

[sawood12]

I don't think they do have caliper plates as such - and in any case the problem is not the spring plates themselves but corrosion that occurs between the plates and the calipers. The caliper plates are there for the brake pads to push up against and slide against when in use and they prevent the pad wearing into the soft aluminium caliper. The watercooled cars calipers seem to work by having two pins which the pad locates on and pushes against so the edge of the pad doesn't come into contact with the caliper at all - the pins act like rails for the pads to run on. Not sure what the pins and plates are in the service item list - maybe the top locating pin that is driven out with a punch to remove the pads and the plate could be the spring plate that sits under the top locating pin and the pads. I'm basing this on photo's i've seen of them so would be interested in knowing if this is the case or not - and if so why hasn't Brembo adopted such a system and done away with the caliper plate design for good?! Seems like just basic poor engineering design to me.

 

[wibble]

[FONT=Arial"]Another job to do is to dismantle the plates from my calipers, after spending a small fortune rectifying plate lift 2 years ago. That is to clean them up and apply copper based grease between the plate and alloy caliper body to try and alleviate any reaction between the two metals.

Just had a similar problem removing the outer mild steel bushes from the wishbones - although much easy to work on and rectify.

 

[Frenchy]

If Brembo made it easier to remove the slider plates ! whip em out clean and lubricate, put back together Lemon Squeezy.....if only.

 

[Alpine]

Guys

if you have a picture of plate lift I would love to see it - could it be posted? I have heard lots about it but never quite understood what it meant ........

 

[wibble]

I have no photo, but there was an article in Porsche Post 2-3 years ago. It's difficult to see until it is dismantled and the plates are removed.

Tell tale signs are pads are difficult to remove and more so when replacing with new (they won't fit!). Also, look for potential seizure of the pad, i.e. rust on one side of the disc. Vagueness, in pulling up at speed.

As mentioned in the post the 'plates' allow the pads to slide and my guess is to prevent wear on alloy caliper over time. The plates therefore sit between the pad and the alloy. However, alloy and steel react naturally over time causing oxide. The oxide eventually buckles the plates and thereby lifting them against the pads causing them to malfunction (hence, bad design of caliper or an easy way to sell more calipers).

To add to the equation are bolts (allen headed)that fasten the plates to the caliper. These will also react and become almost impossible to remove without expert help. They really need to be part of a maintenance schedule to gain full benefits of otherwise good brakes.

Bodge jobs include filing away the ends of the new pads, but this is really compromising the most important aspect of your car!

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: wibble

Tell tale signs are pads are difficult to remove and more so when replacing with new (they won't fit!). Also, look for potential seizure of the pad, i.e. rust on one side of the disc. Vagueness, in pulling up at speed.

Tell tale sign of badly corroded rear calipers include the back end locking up and spitting the car sideways at over 100 mph in the braking zone at the end of Silverstones national straight []. Its the dust and all that, a dodgy caliper whilst seeming to work OK can very quickly become a liability. The really odd thing is that last Autumn I couldn't budge the car even cold yet when I came to look at it and the same now it rolls around easily. Very odd.

 

[Diver944]

Here's a pic from that magazine article a few years ago.

The calliper plate on the left has lifted by 1-2 mm right underneath his finger

The calliper on the right has the plate totally flush so the pad can slide freely

 

[944 man]

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

ORIGINAL: wibble

Tell tale signs are pads are difficult to remove and more so when replacing with new (they won't fit!). Also, look for potential seizure of the pad, i.e. rust on one side of the disc. Vagueness, in pulling up at speed.

Tell tale sign of badly corroded rear calipers include the back end locking up and spitting the car sideways at over 100 mph in the braking zone at the end of Silverstones national straight []. Its the dust and all that, a dodgy caliper whilst seeming to work OK can very quickly become a liability. The really odd thing is that last Autumn I couldn't budge the car even cold yet when I came to look at it and the same now it rolls around easily. Very odd.

Have you got a bias adjuster Neil? Some regs prohibit them, but you can usually get around that either by fitting them out of the drivers reach; or better by lock-wiring them for the race.


Simon

 

[os951]

ORIGINAL: Hilux

If you know a good machine shop and are handy with highly accurate measuring you can fit anything you like with adapter blocks/plates.

Here's solution i use with GT2 calipers

 

[sawood12]

This video clearly shows how the modern spring plate free Porsche caliper design differs from the design we all know and 'love'. There are cut-outs at the bottom (inner) edge of the pad which run along the two pins like rails and there also seems to be large circular bearings attached to the top corners of the pad to spread the load against the soft aluminium caliper body hence no need for caliper plates. Must be cheaper to manufacture than the two-peice assembly with spring plates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW4UknLOmOc

 

[Super_Marv]

ORIGINAL: sawood12

This video clearly shows how the modern spring plate free Porsche caliper design differs from the design we all know and 'love'. There are cut-outs at the bottom (inner) edge of the pad which run along the two pins like rails and there also seems to be large circular bearings attached to the top corners of the pad to spread the load against the soft aluminium caliper body hence no need for caliper plates. Must be cheaper to manufacture than the two-peice assembly with spring plates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW4UknLOmOc

Yep, that does seem to do away with the need for spring plates.

His new discs are incorrectly orientated though! []

 

[TTM]

Interesting... I suppose these calipers won't fit into 16" wheels... []