2007 Porsche Cayman S – Brake Job

I have entered my Cayman S for a track event at VIR the second weekend in September. I’ve been driving it a fair amount around town and everything seems to be in good shape, generally. But I knew from the pre-purchase inspection that the tires were tired (pun alert) and the brake pads were thin.

The tire issue was resolved by buying new tires for my wife’s 06 Cayman S and tranferring her used tires to my car. This was part of the “master plan”. For whatever reason, the tires on her car get very noisy as they wear down below 50% tread depth. So she got the new tires on her car and I put the hand me downs on my car. Done.

I pulled the car onto my midrise lift and pulled off the wheels. Sure enough, the brake pads were getting towards the end of their life. And the front calipers were below minimum thickness. There was plenty of life for a street car but I did not want to tempt fate with a track event coming up. So I ordered new parts. My mantra on this car will be to go with Porsche OEM parts, unless there is an overriding reason to do otherwise. In this case, after discussions with Jason at Paragon-Products, I decided to go with Textar pads, Sebro grooved (but not cross drilled ) rotors, new caliper attachment bolts, new pad wear sensors, and new caliper hardware kits. And I did a brake fluid flush, which went without incident using my Motive pressure bleeder. There were no special surprises. My only subtle tip is to use this opportunity to use a good quality electrical contact cleaner to clean out the connector plugs for not only the wear sensors but the ABS cables, at each wheel. The may just save you a random ABS warning light on your dash. I just completed a pad “bedding” run this afternoon, out on some back roads. I think the car is ready for its first track event.