Brakes and RMS

mike creer · 1 May 2006

Hi guys n gals,

Just hoping some of you techies out there can cast light on two questions I have.

Firstly, BRAKES : Had a grinding noise recently from my rear brakes. This is not the first time it has happened. Driving the C4S away from the showroom after having purchased it I got vibration through the steering wheel when peeling the speed off gently - turned out to be the discs(7.5k miles!) - problem sorted(skimmed) FOC by dealer.

This time have had brakes checked out by friendly and trustworthy non-OPD garage near my home. After all the wheels were taken off I was asked to have a look. There was NO evidence of copper grease anywhere around the brakes or hub! Is this usual? I would have thought there would have been SOME evidence of grease! Apparantly a very light application of copper grease or such-like prevents rust and wheel seizing onto hub amongst other things.

The grinding noise turned out to be coming from one of the rear inside discs where the pad had almost "bonded" onto the disc in the wet conditions after the car hadnt been used for 10 days or so. (It sits outside under a breathable cover). Brakes have now been thoroughly cleaned and greased.

But Im interested to know if the non-greasing is standard practice... the rather abrupt man at AFN didnt seem to know what I meant when I questioned him about copper grease!

Secondly: RMS?? Read lots of threads about it. Glad Ive parted with £725 to extend my warranty! But what does RMS actually stand for? Sorry to appear so dull!!! My vehicle has done 15k...should I be concerned? Do Porsche check this out during an annual service? Should I ask them? Im about to drive down to Le Mans in it....could do without it going "pop" on a French Toll road!

Thanks folks....an excellent web-site,some fantastic info...and even great banter!

Love my Porsche....but have hated its recent devaluation!

Best wishes

Mike

'04 996 C4S

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56492

Seagull · 1 May 2006

Mike. I believe the greasing around the hub to prevent the disc sticking is an optional thing but I'm sure I'll be corrected on this.

RMS (Rear Main Seal) is the main seal where the shaft comes out of the crank case and goes into the gearbox. It can fail at any time or not at all - it's just the luck of the draw although a high percentage of water cooled Porsches do need it replaced. I had mine replaced this week at 20,000 miles and yes, the OPC called me to say it had gone whilst it was having it's annual service. The usual signs are spots of oil on the garage floor central on the axis of the car and underneath the engine. Other signs are a deposit of oil on the join between the engine and box. It isn't a catasrophic failure so you don't need to worry about your trip to Le Mans. It is a constant threat though Porsche are on about the 5th version of the seal and the 3rd version of the tool to seat it properly so once it's been done, it is no guarentee that it wont go again. I think you just have to account for it in the running cost of the car but then so effectively is the extended warranty. They cost the same amount of money but the warranty also covers for the other potential problems of collapsed crank and split liners.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56493

mike creer · 2 May 2006

Seagull,

Thanks very much for that info on RMS failure. I'll definately be getting them to check that all's ok during my next service!

As for the brake grease....Im convinced that a little application is better than none at all - especially in our climate!

Any other comments from anyone on either subject very welcome.

thanks again

Mike

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56519

Carrera · 2 May 2006

Mike, I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, are you saying you'd put copper grease on the brake disc to stop the pad bonding/sticking to disc due to rust???? If so, that would be a mad mad thing to do, you'll find out why the next time you try to use your brakes!

Porsche uses iron that rusts easier for the discs because of the extra friction you get during braking. If you leave the car for any length of time the discs will rust. That's why if you're not going to drive the car for sometime, always put it in gear rather than putting the hand brake on. Also remmember to dry the brakes by driving round the block after washing will help.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56523

mike creer · 2 May 2006

Hi Butzi, No ,no not at all! I do see sense in putting grease on the hub(where there's contact with the alloy wheel...and also where the wheel nuts/scews sit flush against the hub)...but DEFINATELY NOT between pad and disc!

Thanks though for the "top tip" regarding just leaving the car in gear and also drying the brakes out after washing etc... that's something I'll put into practice in future.

Cheers

Mike

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56527

Mark911 · 2 May 2006

Mike,

regarding the copper grease and brakes, a spot of copper grease applied to the back of the disc pad is known to prevent a brake squeal only.

A small amount of copper grease also on the wheel stud/bolt threads helps to prevent them seizing and snapping off on removal but do not apply any to tapered base of the bolt or nut.

As Butzi pointed out, always go round the block to dry your brakes off after washing the car - and it's another good excuse to drive it anyway

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56536

hog · 2 May 2006

It has been common practice for years to smear the BACK of brake pads, anti-rattle springs, retaining pins, etc, with some type of anti-seize grease - Coppaslip or Wurth anti-seize are popular in the garage trade.

It also helps to smear the back of alloy wheels with the same stuff, to prevent them seizing onto the steel hubs. Some manufacturers don't do this from new - don't know why, perhaps it saves time and costs on the assembly line. But every mechanic that I know does it, probably knowing that it will make life easier for the next time he or another has to do a brake strip or wheel removal. It does seem to cut down on brake squeal but I think that is more a function of pad compounds than reducing backing plate friction.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56580

Porsche Torque · 2 May 2006

not all the the techs who work at opc`s take pride in their work. at a lot of opc`s the pay is crap so porsche pay peanuts to their staff and they employ lots of monkeys ,most of have not been trained on the older cars and can not work on them and it`s left to people like me to work on anything older than 993`s .the work is not checked often by quality control in the opc`s and their are alot of bodgers around in these workshops .on 996 and boxsters a "good" technician will always rub down the corrosion between the wheel hub and the wheel and apply some copperslip or cu800 to make sure that the wheel will not seize on the hub again.porsche don`t use copperslip on the back of the brake pads we always use new damper plates or something by wurth called antisqueak spray which is like a adhesive.the rear main oil seal is the latest 997 seal which seems to be curing the problem at the moment.but another seal which always leaks is the intermediate shaft seal which sits below the rms on removal of the intermediate shaft flange there is a small o ring on the nose of the shaft which must be changed but most techs don`t .this o ring stops oil getting through the flange.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56751

Tiptronic · 2 May 2006

Sid, is the detoriation of the front radiators due to corrosion a manufacturing fault or wear and tear?

Car in question is a 22k miles 03 C4S with FPSH and in Fab condition, they rekon leaves and debry have caused the problem

Daz

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56760

Seagull · 2 May 2006

That's interesting Sid. I had my RMS and intermediate shaft seal replaced last week (at 20,000 on a 3 y.o. targa) as a goodwill gesture from PGB, even though it's 11 1/2 months out of warranty - see the post "Big Up for Porsche GB" Do you know if you can request a technician by name to work on your car? I for one would take mine to WLOPC if they could guarentee that someone llike you was going to do the work rather than take the chance in a lottery of getting a 'monkey' working on it. I may not be in the fortunate position of having money as no object - I stretched myself to get the car I had always dreamed of, but made sure I kept enough aside to run it properly. If I'm paying £99 + VAT an hour, I think I deserve to have a competant technician work on it. If not, I'd rather take it to a specialist who is going to respect it in the same way I do.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56762

Porsche Torque · 2 May 2006

it`s usually debris and the odd stone flying into them but have known some of them to rot

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56763

Tiptronic · 2 May 2006

One of the chaps on here had his replaced on a similar age and milage to mine cos they said it was crakced,

Am I right in thinking that the radiator has a steel core with fins welded on, so is it possible that one OPC's corrosion is another OPC's cracking?

Daz

P.S mine has the ext wtty

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56766

Porsche Torque · 2 May 2006

you can request that a certain tech works on your car as you are the customer and the opc must respect that .i get alot of my old customers from porsche staples corner coming to chiswick for me !!! they will have to come to porsche centre hatfield from next week

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56769

Seagull · 2 May 2006

So you're playing hard to get then Sid? That will definitely raise Hatfield's stock from what I've heard. The run up there would certainly warm the oil up and make it easy to change.

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56779

911Silverback · 3 May 2006

Previous poster said:
Quote: Originally posted by sid malik on 02 May 2006

you can request that a certain tech works on your car as you are the customer and the opc must respect that .i get alot of my old customers from porsche staples corner coming to chiswick for me !!! they will have to come to porsche centre hatfield from next week

Sid

Hatfield has a really bad rep on here.

Its my closest OPC by far, but have avoided using it as much as poss, in fact i was going to go Chiswick or Cambridge to ext my warranty.. and i only live 20 mins away

It seems the after sales and ext warranty is a particular issue here as iv not heard anyone having anything positive to say about Hatfield!.. other than how nice the new showroom is..

Hopefully with the likes of yourself now working there, this may change in the future.

However you may want to convey to the powers that be at Hatfield, that they have already lost business from at least 4 members on here that i definitely know of, (and how many more people that read these threads who knows??) Also may i suggest they want to change there attitude of charging people for work that SHOULD be covered under warranty. Cos at this rate there going to run out of business..

Not having a go at you fella, and sorry if it comes over like that

Welcome to the forum

Regards

...rob

Migration info. Legacy thread was 56816

Brakes and RMS

mike creer

New member

Seagull

Estoril

mike creer

New member

Carrera

Banned

mike creer

New member

Mark911

Nurburgring

hog

Spa-Francorchamps

Porsche Torque

Silverstone

Tiptronic

Banned

Seagull

Estoril

Porsche Torque

Silverstone

Tiptronic

Banned

Porsche Torque

Silverstone

Seagull

Estoril

911Silverback

Nurburgring

Similar threads

Latest posts

New Threads

Porsche Model Range

Porsche 911

Porsche Hypercars

Other Current Porsche Model

Porsche Legacy Models

Forum statistics