Some time ago I was planning to install Polish brake calipers on my Polo 6R. The main reason I wanted bigger calipers was my dynamic driving style + the fact that bigger calipers means always more blue in the wheel recess 🙂
On some video on jutube I found a rather interesting upgrade using aluminium calipers made in Poland – by WRK Brakes.
You can find quite a few interesting realisations on their Facebook profile. So I contacted them via Facebook, got the info that under 17″ the choice is quite small, so it is better to put in 18″ wheels and then there is more options. Some time later I got a drawing of a “slim” 4-piston 356×32 caliper from MQB for testing fitment with my 18″ wheel. In 2021 such a kit with a bolt-on disc (DBA 5000T3 rotor) was going to cost 6200 PLN gross, so the price was very affordable. If the disc was too big, they could throw in a 350×32 to take 3mm off the rim + use thin weights. A 3mm clearance from rim shoulder to caliper is required.
My car was in a body shop at the time, and I didn’t see any other cool options for a caliper upgrade, so installing 18″ wheels and depriving myself of the option to change to smaller wheels at the time wasn’t an issue for me. After all, 18″ is a normal rim size – whether on a Polo 6R R WRC Street (with the same engine as mine), an Audi A1 Quattro or an Audi S1.
I ordered the original 18″ rims from the Audi S1 – firstly they are OEM – which is how I like them, and secondly – all the other aftermarket ones like OZ etc are wider and have a smaller ET, so there is a good chance that they could stick out beyond the car’s outline….
A caliper fit test with a piece of paper showed that, not including the weights on the A1 bottle rim, there was 5mm of play, so pretty cool.
First fitting of the WRK caliper for 356×32 discs:
Unfortunately, the wiring harness job for my engine didn’t go as smoothly as I’d originally hoped (the workshop that did the job wasn’t very knowledgeable when it came to cables…), so I let the calipers go for a while. On a day-to-day basis, using the older Polo 9n3 1.9 TDI 180KM+ with FS-III brakes, it was quite annoying that the factory brakes would last 3-4 months max during my commute. These brakes were not designed for efficient braking from higher speeds, on average they are suitable for expressway driving, where every now and then lorries come into the left lane and you have to brake the car to around 90km/h.
So I decided to buy Z17 calipers from a Porsche Cayenne/Touareg + 334mm discs for my older Polo 9n3. I’m not a fan of the shape of this caliper, but in the end it’s just old car for commuting to work, so what the hell…. I ordered remanufactured calipers on olx (typical to me – in ultramarine blue).
Unfortunately, in the winter of 2022/2023 the bearings in my 9n3 died, so I had to fix the problem quickly – I pulled the wheel bearing housings together with the R WRC Street brakes from my Polo 6R and dropped them into the older Polo 9n3. As I found out later, the brakes with 312mm discs handle quite well and the pads don’t wear out as quickly as on the FS-III.
Spring was approaching and my 6R was left without brakes so I decided to buy WRK calipers. Because of the pandemics and the war in the neighbouring country, aluminium prices had gone up considerably, but what can’t you do for a Polo…. I wasn’t convinced about the caliper fitting on the basis of a piece of paper, so I sent them my 18″ wheel from the Audi together with the steering knuckle to be 100% sure of the fit – after all, the calipers had become more expensive and were already going to cost 10-12K PLN, so I wanted them to fit properly.
The 18″ wheel with wheel bearing housing while the package was prepared for dispatch:
Unfortunately, it turned out that the calipers whose drawing I had tried on earlier were not available. The owner/manufacturer offered me calipers for 345×24 discs (on the rotor that was from factory on the rear of the some BMWs).
Meanwhile, on the Polo 6R chat room Mateusz, who was using a Polo 6R with 18″ rims driving around Krakow, wrote that this size was not very comfortable for driving on our roads and decided to go back to 17″. This made me realise a little that condemning myself exclusively to 18″ wheels was not a very good idea.
I sent the second wheel – a 17″ – for a fitting. It took some time until the brake calipers were checked. Unfortunately, it turned out that the WRK caliper with 345 discs doesn’t fit the original 17″ wheels from the VW Polo 6C.
The factory wheels from Skoda/VW/Audi 17″ fit a max. 343mm disc with WRK calipers.
The 4-piston calipers from WRK with the 343 mm discs look pretty cool:
I think I counted on these callipers too early, as it turned out they are no longer in production and cannot be ordered….
So in summary WRK callipers for discs:
350-356 for 18″ – not available
343mm for 17″ – not available
The only option is a 345×24 from BMW, which wouldn’t look so good, after all you can fit 370mm discs in an 18″ using classic Brembo calipers. For a kit at a price of over 10K PLN this would be moderately cost-effective.
It seems to me that the manufacturer simply didn’t want to make a set of calipers once again that would fit the Polo, they probably prefer to make much more expensive sets for cars typically for the track…. It’s a bit poor that after a few years it’s no longer possible to buy a caliper that was previously produced….
Another option for nice calipers would be a ready-made VWR65P1GT kit from VWR (Volkswagen Racingline) – calipers for 330mm discs – but after a quick research I noticed that you can’t buy VWR680014 discs alone in Poland, nor VWR670001 pads. Even abroad they are not available everywhere except complete sets with calipers…. And secondly, as it happens with VWR parts – they are produced in small numbers and only for a limited time – after that they cannot be ordered (as I found out when I wanted to buy their stabiliser bar…)
All the wild customs raises problems with later replacement and spare parts. And since I treat my car as a daily, it’s quite important that everything is available all the time – so the best option as usual remains OEM solutions. So the idea was to put the set of calipers I bought with the 9n3 in mind into the Polo 6R – Z17 brakes with Z18 pads combined with 334 discs from the Golf IV R32/Audi 8N TT should be enough for city driving. If they wear out – I’ll buy them normally from any auto parts shop 🙂
