Oops, White Tower. Not White Castle.

Take a look at your rotors - rub your finger from the outer lip, across the surface toward the middle. Two things you’re really looking for here;

• is there a noticeable deep lip on the rim of rotor? This could be indicative of a worn down rotor and consider replacement
• while running fingers across surfaces - is it smooth or do you feel waves? If it feels wavy, indication of needing replacement.

Another thing you can try, kinda inconclusive IMO - but go for a drive and try steadily applying the brakes. If you feel a pulsing, jagged feeling, something not smooth - could be a sign of rotors being warped/worn.

Look up some YT and you should be able to do a second opinion inspection yourself with a fair degree of confidence.

A Freshturds twofer!

You know they don't.

No. That shit is trash. At least regular bones are biodegradable. Don’t throw your trash out on the streets RICHMOND

Those look like literal shit

Glorifying chicken nuggets, for shame.

They don't even count as wings.

The fact that I'm not playing Pokémon Trading Card Game on mah Nintendo Switch now is a travesty. Much Luck to you with this!

Only if my Tyrantrum nets them both.

Jesus you two, just use a micrometer and compare the measurement to the minimum spec.

We’re talking about brakes here. I’d say stay with the program but I’m out of capacity to care. I was just trying to steer OP right.

Who said I was getting brakes done?

If you knew so much you wouldn’t have somebody else doing your brake job. You do you, though.

Yeah. The guys not charging me for work were really screwing me over.

If you say so. If any one of them gave you the referenced bullshit when you took your car in I’d recommend taking your business elsewhere because not everybody is out to milk money on unnecessary repairs.

And to be specific, I'm talking REARS, not fronts.

Fine. A mechanic friend formerly at Import Auto Haus, a service manager at Jerry's Ford who oversaw recalls on a car I owned, a manager at Royal Service Center in Alexandria who took care of two of my cars, and a buddy of mine from a car club whose dad owned a garage that we used to use for car modding all have talked with me about book rate and service policies. Believe me or not, I don't care, but it's how the industry works.

You’re the one making a claim, friend. I’m just saying that rotors and pads in the referenced car need not be changed at the same time and that’s just a fact.

What, you want a list? FOH...

Really? How many mechanics do you know? I’ve rebuilt a couple of VWs and have VW mechanic friends and with the exception of the one who works for Flow I’m pretty sure all of them would say that’s bullshit.

If the book calls for always replacing rear rotors and pads together, that's what the mechanic is going to say every time.

I’ve paid $760 for the same thing back in 2015 and didn’t feel ripped off then, but a quick search on RockAuto is showing a bunch of different options for $75-$150 range. Times have changed.

If the place you went is using all OEM(original factory spec) sure - $760. If your goal is to get it done cheaper and aren’t someone who’s needlessly obsessed with keeping everything OEM, it might be worth calling a couple different shops. It shouldn’t take a VW specific mechanic for a brake job.

You'll get better answers if you post this in a VW subreddit instead of the Richmond one. https://www.reddit.com/r/vwgolf/

There are tolerances/thicknesses which determine whether rotors and pads need to be replaced. Any mechanic who makes a blanket statement one way or the other (i.e. “rotors always need to be replaced with pads”) is to be regarded with suspicion.