How to set your polo on fire! - not recommended

**pomme** · 30-09-2007, 12:22 AM

Last night I went for a drive round mt nebo. (brisbanites will know this drive well, i'm sure).

Car was loaded up with mates, just as bored as i was... and so we set off. It was a cold night... which the turbo loved... and it pulled us up the mountain fairly swiftly. At jollys lookout we jumped out to see if the turbo was glowing, and were not disappointed. Not only the turbo... but a fair bit of exhaust as well, quite a sight if you haven't seen it before.

Heading to the other side of the mountain, we made the decision to get the rotors red hot and get some pictures. So on the really steep descent, I was jumping on the brakes much more than was required. Accelerating, just to slow down.... with 5 people in the car, we tortured the poor brakes. After a while, the brakes were fading fast... the pedal almost went to the floor... braking performance was just a glimmer of what it used to be, you could smell that burning brake pad smell, excellent we thought.

On pulling over and jumping out... with the hope of seeing some red hot rotors... i was shocked to not only find the rotors red hot... but flames emanating from the callipers / pad.

We snapped a couple of pictures, then set off.. 1st gear holding the car nice and slow, but fast enough to give the brakes some much needed cooling. We pulled over 500m down the track, and the rotors were the normal boring silver.

While i realise it could have been extremely bad (brake lines melting maybe), and in hindsight was not the best idea i've ever had... there doesn't seem to be any issues as a result of the incident. The brakes still operated like normal, i had the wheels off, and inspected everything... all seemed fine.

So here are 2 photos, right side was with my camera on long exposure.

I didn't realise you could get brakes THAT hot... but i know for next time, and probably won't be trying it again.

did a quick search... and found my pog has something in common with the mcclaren slr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_1-jP0rXvU

**mikinoz** · 30-09-2007, 08:14 AM

My hero!

**SoVeReIgN** · 30-09-2007, 09:16 AM

Holy **** lol - Reminds me of a friend of mine who drove to my house (~2kms) with the handbrake fully engaged.. pulled up and his rear discs were glowing.

You might want to replace the pads and change the brake fluid after that - Could have warped the disc too..

gpk_gti · 30-09-2007, 09:20 AM

psyco!!! you have just won the award for best psyco vdubber on vww!!! woohooooooooooo!!!! I used to make my old vr6 pads smoke like mad but never on fire! hehheheh! get the discs checked mate,might be a bit warped!

**PeterHBne** · 30-09-2007, 11:21 AM

There's a lot to be said for mechanically abusing a car - old corolla's, commodores, datsuns and such where they handle it well, you can't get yourself in too much trouble and parts are cheap.

Just don't know if I'd be doing it in something new, relatively expensive and will really cost you to repair.

**GoLfMan** · 30-09-2007, 01:37 PM

dear god man, you must have money to burn, i hope you didnt just turn your car off straight away instead of letting it run for a while to let the turbo cool down! thats a way to kill a turbo turning it off after a flogging