Rotate Tires And Inspect Brake Pads

Our 04 Cabriolet is front wheel drive (not quattro), it’s good to rotate the tires every 10k miles, the front tires are normally  wear out faster than the rear because of front end torque and being turned every so often. Well, again, it’s best to take it to the shop for tire rotation and brake inspection, but I had a bad experience with one of the tire center where this young man was to lazy to find the correct socket size and try to use a (already there at the pressure gun) slightly larger socket and almost stripped my A8 lug nuts, he kept pressing the gun, rotating fast without actually turning the lug bolt until I told him it wasn’t a correct size. Anyhow, I never went back there and avoid to take my car to the shop unless it’s inevitable. It’s only take less than an hour on a Sat or Sun, lifting tires (good exercise) and do it right, the car lasts much longer, again, not all shops have bad guys like this guy.

Safety first: always block the rear of the opposite side of the front I’m going to jack up and vice-versa, hand brake pulled all the way, transmission is in gear (manual) or park (automatic). All Audi cars should have a tool to remove the lugs caps inside the tool box, get that to remove the nice caps. The right tool won’t cause scratches to the caps.

rtires     Lift and hang the spare tire cover

tool box     Lugs Caps removal tool

rtires     cap was removed

The best way to remove a tire is to loosen the lugs while the tire is on the ground, the friction will help to remove the lug easier (it won’t turn while we apply torque to loosen it), BUT don’t remove the lugs or the tires will separate and the suspension will fall to the ground. Since I have the electric impact lugs remover, I can lift the wheel up without the need of loosen the lugs (it costs about $35).

Now, to rotate the front tire to the rear, we need 2 jacks, front and rear, again, make sure we block the tires on the other side from rolling forward or backward.

2 jacks - front and rear for swapping front - rear wheels     Check brake pads thickness and rotors

Check brake pad thickness     Check suspension joints for cracks

Check suspension joints for cracks     Check the suspension joints for cracks

Check the suspension joints for cracks     Check the suspension joints for cracks

The rear brake pads are smaller and not as thick as the front. Normally, rear brake pads would be gone after 2 sets of front brake pads since the front use more than rear, except Q7. Also check to make sure all pads sensors are not damaged by debris.

While we’re lifting up the spare tire cover, the spring of the handle fell out, we need to fix it.

fix spare tire cover handle spring     fix spare tire cover handle

fix spare cover handle spring     fix spare cover handle spring

fix spare cover handle spring

Make sure to tighten all the lug bolts before putting the caps back on. We don’t want to see our wheels rolling in front of our car on the freeway like some horror stories by bad tires shops.

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