Rankster

Might be an old topic, but why is it that our rear wheels get so dirty compared to our front wheels?

TROLL

its called brake dust

Rankster

Well, this I know but usually in FWD cars the brake dust is greater in the front.

RKA

There are low dust pads out there, and it appears Audi switched to a low dust pad for the front only...hence the reason you're seeing more dust in the rear. Nothing is wrong...your front brakes are still doing most of the work. Incidentally, the amount of work the front vs. rear brakes are doing has nothing to do with drivetrain configuration, it's just simple physics.

Mike@Ikon Motorsport

Brake bias and drive wheels

Rankster

Why thank you for the kind words of wisdom Dr. RKA ;-)

D5

which is why porsches have big rear brakes compared to other sports cars.

BurningMustard

I wish they changed that on my 2001, I am sick of how fast the front get dirty

Rankster

This is true, but we don't own Porsches. We own Audi's with engine compartments up front.

woofpup

I think part of why they went with a rear pad that dusts a lot was to resolve problems with noisy rear pads. I remember reading that they now use a softer rear pad (which would dust more) in the newer VWs and Audis of certain models.

My old 2001 VW GTI VR6 dusted up front but rarely in the rear, while my friend's 2001.5 VW GTI VR6 was the exact opposite and supposedly had the newer pads. However, they also changed to a newer generation ABS controller in the 2001.5s, so who knows.