The 312mm brake set up I find a vast improvement and am very pleased with it.

Just recently I have noticed a problem. When driving down the motorway when it is wet and there is a lot of surface water. If I press the brakes nothing happens at first - like having no brakes.

Clearly water on the disks. Periodic gentle break application does clear the water and the brakes then work well again. Though the problem can re-occur within a few seconds perhaps 30secs.

It is odd as they never used to do this in the wet, other than wear of pads and disks (though loads of life left in them) nothing has changed. Standard wheels (new tryes but same as last set and it did it with those too)

Any one else had this problem? Any possible cures - I never had the problem with standard brakes. I wondered if grooved disks might solve it?

Slamming the anchors on while aquaplaning isn't the best course of action. If you have to use you brakes at all like that on a motorway your too close to the car in front.

Having done about 50k on a set of 312's I would say that they will feel different and perhaps you just need to be a little more progressive with your braking.

Hi sorry I perhaps did not make myself clear in my post I am not talking about aquaplaning also I could not agree more about safe wet driving and safe distances from car in front nothing annoys me more and I utterly condone drivers that do not heed this.

The problem is rapid build up of water on brake disk surfaces i think so that when I brake there is nothing there due to water as soon as the water clears the brakes work again well. I know this happens to a degree on any brakes in the wet but this is very marked and despite trying to periodically clear water from them by gentle periodic application of the brakes. My concern is should I be presented with the need for an emergency stop in the wet the few seconds of no brakes due to water build up could be dangerous. thus I wonder if any other have encountered this problem and wonder if they have come across any solutions?

I found the stock wheels with 312s were a bit sensitive to this, when I switched to 17" wheels it seemed to go away a fair bit. I dont know if that was the combination of the Eibachs, mudflaps and 'relatively tight' fit of the 312 under the 16" wheels, but it was 'worse'.

You get used to it though and when you know you can just drive accordingly

i don't remember ever having this concern with my 312s

Never had any problems with mine.

Grooved disks sorted it for me on my B5 Passat - but it has "rear mounted" front callipers. I complained to VW and they just said "its an industry wide problem - use upgraded Audi pads optimismed for cold wet conditions"! What pads are you using? The strange thing is that you are probably using the same model/range of callipers that are fitted to my B5 Passat - but your ones are "front mounted". Also, you will find that VAG and maybe others, fit a "water clearing function" to some of their cars to get rid of this problem. It is a bit scary when it happens though, my written reply from VW, they could not discuss this over the phone, was that "you" should always test your brakes before you need to use them!!??!!

In my experience it happened mainly when the weather was cold and salt had been applied to the road surface - and that was the finding of someone that reported problems with an A4 of the same age round about the time I first experience this (winter 2002 I think).

You might check the ATE site for Power Discs in your size and get ECP to order them in for you - they don't cost much.

The amount of water spraying on the inside of the wheel and the fact that the wheel and disk are so close are certainly not helping. But could it be that you are still wearing the discs and pads in, and the combination of that and water makes it feel worse than what it is.

Nevermind, summer is on its way, you can save up for some grooved discs / 17's for the winter months. . .

Some interesting thoughts many thanks all. I think they are well worn in now they have done 20 000 at least so maybe i should just go for new better pads I guess they could be the culprit to if that fails it looks like grooved disks!

Wonder if it would be worth fitting the matching brake shields from a car with 312mm brakes (if they even fit???)

It may even be due to something silly as the discs hs a greater surface area to collect the water? also as said alot closer to wheel so subjected to alot more of the spray

Wonder if it would be worth fitting the matching brake shields from a car with 312mm brakes (if they even fit???)

Could be - but, when I first experienced this problem, and after VW-UK only suggested that I cough up for the "correct" pads from Audi, I went round to my VW dealer's parts place and was offered the standard "upgrade kit" for this problem - which was proper "full" shields - but my car already had them fitted - earlier Passats etc only had a short water deflector (I think) - it was then that the parts guy went out and read-off the part numbers for the extra wheel arch deflectors fitted to a B5.5 for me as the VW parts list did not include these numbers - and ordered them for me. I would have thought that Skoda would have already added all this stuff as the B5 Passat was launched in 1997/8 and the Fabia was launched in 2000? well within the time frame where this "brake wash-out" was generally considered to be a possible problem.

I have had this issue too. Just bear it in mind in bad conditions and be extra cautious.