VRS TDi four and a half weeks old. I'm not one who rides his brakes, in fact I'm pretty light on them, gearing down in traffic to regulate my speed rather than dab on the middle pedal, but my alloys are taking a serious brake dust covering. I've opted for Pictoris, so possibly some of you guys running Geminis won't notice too much, but just wondered if this had been experienced on other new cars? Is this just the pads bedding in? Braking performance is faultless, just wondered if the pads themselves were softer and therefore causing the excessive dust. Cheers all.

Pads bedding in I would imagine, they will settle down but obv there will always be a residue

Mine is nine months old. Still getting brake dust on the wheels. Only thinking this morning the Octy needs a wash.

I'm getting a fair bit of brake dust too.  A bit more than I'd expect, but maybe bedding in explains it.  I'm being a bit heavy on my brakes, deliberately, after reading the thread about the rear ones starting to disintegrate.  Doesn't seem to be doing them any harm - and maybe another factor on the brake dust front.

 

Gaz

You're not the only one thinking that. I've noticed mine seem to shed it like dandruff. I don't use mine any more than my passat, and that was massively less than the Skoda. I'm thinking the pad material on oem is a bit soft and likely to shed a lot of dust

I like to see a bit of dust, tells me the brakes are working, 

Get some good sealant on your wheels like gtechniq and the dust will wash off easily.

 

New cars do seem to generate more dust. Since Asbestos was taken out of brake pads, they generate more dust.

It's pretty normal these days. The pads and discs are fairly soft and lots of dust.

My car gets dusty wheels within about 40 miles :( I regularly pop into the car wash and have a pounds worth of pressure wash during the week till I can clean them properly on the weekend.

Cheers guys. Just had to put it out there. I'd expect some residue, it's just I was quite shocked by how much was coming off and onto the wheels. Think a good sealant is a decent shout. Drove my old golf for eleven years and never had the dust I've had, but it looks like it's fairly common, so I'll take comfort in that. Thanks again.

Edited 23 September, 201510 yr by Skodev

Had my car just over a month and my front Geminis are just lost in brake dust.

I think it's something to do with wheel design or the aero of the vehicle.

 

I have a MK2 (but Mk3 isn't hugely different.).  My wheels get filthy within a week (100km/day).  I'm only 50% into the original pads after 160,000km so it can't be brake dust - I think it's road grime.

 

Back in the early 80s when I sold wheels/tyres we used to sell a sheetmetal disc to go between the wheel and the brakes - maybe that's what is needed?

My Australian experience with Hyundai, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Ford, and (in Britain) much older British Leyland is that none were anywhere as bad as the two Skoda I have owned.

Walk down any street of parked cars and it is obvious that most Euro sourced cars seem to suffer similar problems

 

Not only are the pads softer but the VW disks seem to wear much more quickly and often need replacement when the pads do.

Edited 24 September, 201510 yr by Gerrycan

Back in the day when i used to be mechanic when customer was giving out about brake dust on his wheels we always recommended EBC brakes green, they produce way less dust and dust of them has more sliverish color so its harder to notice on standard alloy wheels. Im not sure if youre "allowed" to use a different brake pads when it comes to warranty of your car though. Now i use autoglym wheel protector which i got for free ( i wouldnt buy it because i was always skeptical about similar products ) but i have to say im very impressed so i would definitely recommend it and ill definitely buy another one when i finish this one. But when my warranty will be gone im going back to EBC

Not noticed it on the Octavia yet, but the Citigo would get caked in the dust within a week, I got fed up of washing them and just left them black! So that would support the theory as above.

Huge discs on these cars = huge pads= more contact = more dust. But even our 1.4 seat collects grime on the alloys.

As someone has mentioned you could at one time get a shield between the disc and wheel. But then you wouldn't see the nice Red callipers and huge discs. Only takes seconds to clean when washing the car.

The problem with leaving the dust on the wheels for prolonged periods is that the brake dust eats into the wheel finish because it is acidic. Leave it more than a few weeks and you'll struggle to clean the wheels, leave it longer and the finish starts to develop pitting which gets really bad over a period of time.

When I had the Octavia MK1 vRS, I used to clean the wheels weekly regardless of if I cleaned the rest of the car or not.

These days with the Audi I don't bother because the car is 11 years old and the wheels need a refurb anyway.