Time for new pads/rotors?

For awhile now (too long honestly) I've been getting some annoying cyclical pulsing/rubbing "wohwohwohwoh" sounds when driving under 25 mph that sounds like its mostly coming from the front drivers side. I finally took a peak recently and noticed what looks like some really uneven wear on the rotors.
There is a raised ring around the outside edge that's pretty rusted, I'm assuming because the brake pads haven't been making even contact.
Front driver's side:

Rear driver's side:


My other thought was wheel barring, but its been going on for awhile now and from what I've heard it would have gotten incredible obvious (loud) by now if that's what it was.

Am I right to think it's time for a brake job? I got a friend who is willing to give me a hand if so, but I haven't been able to hook-up with him yet for him to take a look at it. I just want to make sure before I order parts I'm not doing some meaningless work.

My theory is this is all related/stems back to my thread about sine bad service I got from the dealer, but putting things off for so long now I'm willing to take most of the blame. Here's the thread if you are interested.
http://www.golfmk6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103851

Thanks in advance.

Could not get your photo open. But...
Yes. Brake job. I had similar experience. My rotors were toast and all kinds of terrible feeling/looking.

Thats one of the rears from the inside. And only with 35k miles. I just don't drive that often. That combined with winter weather.

If your brakes dont feel good and a bedding procedure doesnt seem to fix it, changes the brakes. Don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but brakes protect your life.

Sent from phone Tapa

brobst said:

Could not get your photo open. But...
Yes. Brake job. I had similar experience. My rotors were toast and all kinds of terrible feeling/looking.

Thats one of the rears from the inside. And only with 35k miles. I just don't drive that often. That combined with winter weather.

If your brakes dont feel good and a bedding procedure doesnt seem to fix it, changes the brakes. Don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but brakes protect your life.

Sent from phone Tapa

Click to expand...

I'm pretty much at the same mileage, and we definitely have some winter up here in Maine.
The weird thing is the brakes feel fine, its mostly just the noise that is off-putting.
I can try going through a bedding procedure this weekend if I plan out a route, but it sounds like it might to time to start shopping, any recommendations?

What ever you decide on, check rock auto. They have the best rotor prices

Sent from phone Tapa

If you gotta ask its time to do it.

One last question, thanks for the help so far.
Any reason why I couldn't (shouldn't?) do the fronts now and save the rears for later? Fronts are the haggard looking ones, plus from what I understand they are really the ones doing most of the braking on this car.
I'm just thinking it could save me some time and money right now.

The lip on the rotor is normal, but you will want to look at the pads. Your noise is probably a wheel bearing or tire, they can be loud for quite awhile before it gets worse.

zrickety said:

The lip on the rotor is normal, but you will want to look at the pads. Your noise is probably a wheel bearing or tire, they can be loud for quite awhile before it gets worse.

Click to expand...

My dad's friend who is his mechanic thought it might be the tire when he happened to mention it to him. I should probably drive down their way and have them look at it. My driveway is a decent incline, on a fairly busy road, otherwise I'd jack the car up right now and shake the tire to see if its the wheel bearing. I'm going to take it to a parking lot later today and see what I come up with.

Is it okay to just replace pads without doing rotors? I thought VW says you should do them together.

I think pads go before rotors usually. Depends on how the rotor looks in my opinion

Sent from phone Tapa

yeah if your rotors are that dark they have gotten hot, generally they need replaced after 2 sets of pads. But your results may vary with high speed braking.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk