Just turned 30K on my 18 SE 4 MO, oil changes at dealership every 10K and just replaced the rear brake pads myself. That's it - has been a reliable, comfortable car with a great size to mpg ratio.
For pads I went with OE quality ones as they were under half the price of VW and a decent brand.
114k still on factory brakes all around!
After 70K miles of fun driving, I finally replaced my front brake rotors and pads...3mm left on the pads LOL. I got Zimmermann Rotors($180) and Mintex pads($45) and couldn't be happier. In fact, this set-up feels a lot better than the OEM bite and feel plus the massive reduction in brake dust.
I recently got a pair of pretty rusty 325 calipers for £50 (mine are the smaller ones from a 316) and sandblasted them back to clean metal. Then painted with high temp paint and rebuild kit £30 (pistons, seals, guide pins, bleed valves etc). I was pretty happy with the result which cost me around £100 for the pair. I then went with mintex discs and pads and a full set of braided brake lines my mate had. Full refurb prolly cost me £300 and are significantly better than they were but I don't think they will be as good as a 4 pot setup.
My 06 GTI had the rears wear out at 70k. The fronts lasted until 135k. I was completely dumbfounded that the rears wore faster and the fronts lasted that long. I replaced everything with OEM parts and am experiencing similar wear on the new stuff.
As stated, installed new Mintex front pads and I believe I installed correctly. rattle only occurs when not braking, when brakes applied immediately disappears.
Here is a shot of the front brakes. They're quite worn, below the legal acceptable thickness for a Phaeton and showing hairline cracks on the inside, the pads are also fairly shot.
Whenever I talk to people they don't say too much about reliability, but what they do say is how they hate the maintenance costs with VWs. $100+ oil changes, paying for maintenance items off warranty at dealer (brakes), etc.
I saw the same thing on our car. We are right under 4K miles and it seemed very ODD to me. Also def a lot of break dust. I have to wash the car/wheels at least once a week because they start turning dark grey.
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