VW Passat electronic park brakes…

Umm.. They didn’t knowingly put in a device that was prone to malfunction 🙄 it’s not like they had meetings in which they made a decision to create something unreliable and annoying.. So it wouldn’t form part of their business strategy ffs.. The idea is fine, the execution is flawed.

Out of interest, how heavy are the motors that drive these handbrakes?

I’m struggling to envisage them being lighter than a mechanical setup.

At a time of purchase it was Passat vs Octavia.

Octavia estate was allright, acceptable quality trim, boot was allright, mechanical handbrake etc. It was an acceptable smart enough looking car.

Same year like for like Passat costed the same monies, and it was no brainer even to consider otherwise. 2 years happy owner of Passat (58plated). Subtle quality, comfort, economy and reliability without shouting badge.

Auto hold electric function is god send.

The brakes weigh the same – whether there’s a mechanical mechanism or a motor/gearbox on the back.

The weight saving comes from getting rid of the lever in the cab’ (1.5kg) and the two cables running from the cab’ to each wheel (about 2kg each depending on car size).

The other advantage is the lack of set-up necessary when building the car. You bolt the brakes on, plug the harness in and away you go. Major cost and hassle saving.

Also no worries about routing the park brake cables from the cab’ lever to each wheel. That saves time during development and no lever/no cables is one less thing to go wrong/wear out.

JAG just a quick question, when did you last have a cable handbrake go wrong?
Oh and how well do the electronic ones work in the snow? Can you gently apply the handbrake while rocking the car?

molgrips – Member

Umm.. They didn’t knowingly put in a device that was prone to malfunction it’s not like they had meetings in which they made a decision to create something unreliable and annoying.. So it wouldn’t form part of their business strategy ffs.. The idea is fine, the execution is flawed.
Yet you made this quote about Mazda 6 DPF (which you didn’t have the facts right anyway)

I’d not buy a car with that kind of design bodge on principle.

More so , when cable does go wrong its not a show stopper.

Takes 10 minutes to manually wind it off and i can cary on my day – your milage may. Vary but frontera , landrover and my peugeot could all be manually backed off with a spanner or a screw driver …. He joys of drum handbrakes.

Then you carry on your day using sense and the gear box when you park up 🙂

your e brake packs in and your getting the aa out.

I’m running a 54 Passat so safe from the possible hassle of the Lecky handbrake bollix. My local garage has advised me never to get one with a lecky HB as theyv’e had loads of bother with them.
I’ll be keeping well clear!

(I hope I can get more out of this one than the paltry 235K that I got out of my last 51 model)

molgrips…

With regard to reliablity – I’d say back in the day of the Mk2 golf, yes VW’s were remarkably well made and resilient. Since then they’ve been no better than an average manufacturer.

the mk3 golf era marked a noticeable downturn in reliability and general build quality. Mk4’s trim was garbage – My Mk4 GTi TD PD150 had several trim parts fall off, other parts stitching unwind, and that was on the Recaro, top of the line leather interior. My Mk5 Golf GTi DSG was worse. Trim was garbage and the car was very unreliable – electrical gremlins (although the car was a hoot to drive) cause frequent breakdowns. I went from that to an Audi A3 2.0 diesel Sport that had less power, less torque and far less reliability than the mk4 pd 150. Laughably, for the a3’s first service, (I owned the car from new), it’s FIRST service, the dealer cheerily told me it should ‘only’ come to approx £1400.

VW/Audi’s reliability is, in general, now a myth. It’s not supported by breakdown figures either. Reliability report

Out of interest – did you get your Passatt sorted eventually? Hope you had a good outcome. 🙂

£1400 for a first service? I think you misheard the service bloke 😉

Scamper…

Sadly i didn’t. Althought I thought the same at first.

Wanted to replace Front disks 60% worn and rears 70% worn. I replied that meant they had almost 30 and 50% live left in them. Added to that were perished CV joint rubbers and tons of other things. They didn’t get permission to fix the car. Took it to an indy, got it serviced/fixed and sold it. Awful car. I hated it so much I ditched cars for while and had motorbike/bike only until my hip got really bad and I needed a car.

I bought a wee Fork Ka from a car market for £275 at that point! Drove that for 2 years with no problems at all. Loved that wee car. Cost me £70 in servicing/MOT the whole time I had it. 🙂

Yet you made this quote about Mazda 6 DPF (which you didn’t have the facts right anyway)

I know I may be wrong, I have only forum chat to go on. However the point about dpfs on Mazda being a service item at 70k miles was made on here. I didn’t believe it at first and I would live to be wrong.

However, to answer your point there is a huge difference between a bad design that was approved and produced knowing it’s flawed than a poorly implemented design.

How do you do handbrake turns with a leccy handbrake?

I had a problem with a handbrake once. So I got the plate it was fixed to welded back to the car floor for £5 and it was fine.

Someone earlier suggested to “go behind the caliper and remove two torx bolts holding the black plastic module on the back of the caliper. It should then come off and you can unplug it and drive the car”. Does anyone know if this is possible?

My car is still stuck where I parked it several weeks ago and getting it transported to a dealer is simply not a viable option. I’m thinking of seeing if I can get some WD40 into the mechanism first, and if not, disabling it at least sufficient to drive it a short distance to get it to a garage with a ramp for further examination.

Yes you can remove the 2 torx bolts, remove and unplug the electric mechanism and manually wind the handbrake off. Done it last weekend on my mums car.

The torx bolts are loctited in so hard to remove bit it’s do-able.

I had a Passat with the electronic parking brake. Have had VW Passats for 20 years but the problems I had with the electronic parking brake, the cost of repairs/spares and the on-going unreliability resulted in selling the Passat and getting something with a good old cable operated brake.

VW would not admit that there is a problem with these things and their customer service was appalling.

I replaced the switch on mine the other day, for £8.99. It had been intermittent and dodgy, but the switch cured that. Works perfectly now.

Had a 2000 Passat for 10 years but couldn’t face another due to the increasingly worrying reliability issues – lovely feel to the vw build but not confidence inspiring that they a) have a shorter warranty than cheaper manufacturers and b) IME the goodwill scheme knowingly overlooks design faults such as the EPB and the utterly crap and potentially financially disastrous poorly designed/made pollen filter housing issue. I might be wrong but vw’s market share can only go down if they don’t up their warranty scheme.

Fwiw I bought a Toyota due to the 5 yr warranty and better reliability record. Not as nice tho 😉

We’ve had an electronic park brake on our Audi for 7 years trouble free. It seems to me there is a specific issue with the Passat one as VAG are capable of making a durable parking brake. The main advantage I see with the electronic one is you save space inside the car. For choice I’d have a manual brake as its one less electrical thing to go wrong.

As an aside the clunky sound you hear when closing the door is a result of the solid construction which saves injury in a side impact.

utterly crap and potentially financially disastrous poorly designed/made pollen filter housing

Is that the one where the passenger footwell fills with water? Fixed in later models afaik. There are no longer any electronics in the footwells, so if it does leak nothing bad can happen.

They had some major issues with the earlier B6s – some injectors, some oil pumps and the EPB. The first to were recalled, the EPB was redesigned in I think 2008. I think they have learned from those earlier mistakes. I’ll keep my ears open since the current generation of cars will probably be in my price range when I come to replace mine, and I do really want another.

Jambalaya: I don’t believe there is any evidence that a car with more solid doors is any safer in a side impact crash; I could be wrong though.
My issue with the EPB is this: As a family we have been great fans of VW fans since the early ’70s. Like Molgrips on the forum here we were prepared to overlook any amount of problems with VW cars because they were so solidly put together. My experience of the MK4 and 5 Passat is that despite their solidity, there are just too many re-occurring faults with them (which is why they are below Citroen and Peugot in reliability surveys). With the Mk5 Passat it was the vulnerable front suspension, the poor quality wiring to the injectors, the fact that all the water coming down the windscreen ended up in the plenum chamber whose drain holes were concealed in a position you couldn’t even get a hand in to clear (resulting in damage to main computer, engine management system and brake servo).
The point at which VW incorporated an EPB (solution in search of a problem)in the Mk6 which was unreliable and required expensive repairs, was the final straw for me as far as VWs were concerned.

Like Molgrips on the forum here we were prepared to overlook any amount of problems with VW cars because they were so solidly put together.

Well as you can see I’ve not overlooked them – I’m keeping an eye out for them. I’m not going to write off a brand because of problems that have been fixed, like the oil pump and the plenum chamber.

If they continue to have problems then I’ll have to think again, but out of all that class of car it’s the one I like the most so I’ll make sure I understand the problems. I’m not overly loyal to VW, although they are my favourite brand probably; I have a series of brands I like and will buy from any of them.

Next time I’m shopping I’ll try an Accord and Avensis, and possibly Hyundai or older 5 series or A6. Never been overly impressed with the interior of a Ford (this is a top priority for me) even though the Mondeo has a good rep. The sheer ugliness of the Accord put me off when I was buying last. I would look at Volvo too but I don’t know their range well.

Molgrips if they ever come out with VW tinted cycling glasses you’ll be first in the queue. I understand where you are coming from. I had a number of Audi 5cylinder coupes, Audi 80 sport, Audi 100 estate with the 5cyl 2.5 TDI. Lovely cars that could be home maintained and capable of stellar mileages. That era has long gone. Ford trounces VAG cars in every reliability survey there is. That really annoys me as the early stuff was superb. At least with Skoda the dealers are better when you take your car in for repair! I’m in the market for a newish car and I simply don’t know what to get.

My choice will be as follows if I strike jackpot today with priority to Jap cars.

Jap cars:

1. Toyota (parts plentiful and reasonable) – Work horse.
2. Mitsubishi (parts plentiful slightly expensive)
3. Mazda (parts reasonable but not sure about plentiful though)
4. Suzuki (parts reasonable but can be expensive)

5. Nissan (parts reasonable) … bloody ugly design that. Ugly … what’s that Nissan Juke or Junk?

6. Honda (parts expensive) … In the far east this is considered the equivalent of BMW here. We don’t drive this even if it is reliable but it is not a workhorse. Nice to look at but a bit sensitive like a girl.

7. Subaru (parts expensive) – very sensitive as my mate found out.

European cars:

1. Skoda – I guess it’s better not to be a VW driver.
2. Volvo – Sad to see they are going to China.
3. Ford – guess you can get all parts here reasonably.

Molly, with the greatest of respect, you’re hardly Passat Marketing’s poster boy.

Having had both, when you come to renew I can seriously recommend you look at the Mondeo. The Passat is a truly great car and mine served me well, but the Mondy absolutely demolishes it in every way.

I was only looking for the smaller class whe I was shopping, I chose the Civic, because the Focus was plain as hell. The Passat was an impulse buy. Although I must say my local VW main dealer are excellent.

The thing is, now I’ve learned a lot about VAG and I own the diagnostic tools so it would be a shame to start from scratch with another car. Plus Ford diesel engines seem rather ropey from what I’ve heard.

I will shop around when I change, as I said, but I have to like the interior and controls etc. That is top priority and a pretty subjective thing, so my choice will always seem weird to most,probably. When looking at Focuses for example, I couldn’t find many used with cruise control since it only comes with the top spec leather trim which I didn’t want and didn’t want to pay for. It was standard on all Civics. Little things make the difference to me.

I would really like self levelling rear suspension next time It’s an option on Passat estates but not common; I think it is standard on Volvo estates tho.

Molgrips the most unreliable 4×4 is the Audi Allroad based on the A6. Why? It’s the self levelling suspension, it’s a major problem and a must to have replaced before you buy one. I assume it’s the same system on the Passat. Good luck with that one. 🙂

Not the same on the Passat. It’s just air assist on the rear springs, I think it’s the nivomat units they use on Volvos which is mature tech.

molgrips – yep that’s the one. Accepted ‘from new’ issue which VW simply chose to ignore. I really agree with your liking of the interiors (I couldn’t buy a Ford because of the cheap alum lookey likey plastic)but VW are falling behind in the quality warranty/reliability stakes and that’s a fact. When repairs are sooo expensive it’s a deal breaking issue for many, me included now.

That said my 192k 14 yr old passat felt better than a 2 year old i30, not tighter just ‘nicer’.

Wait you’re saying there are issues with the VW suspension as well as the Audi set-up? Hmm. It’ll be a big seller for me, as I hate the way the ride deteriorates when towing so anything I can do to improve that is good. I think Volvo is probably my best bet for this. I’ve never driven one and I like the company so it’s worth a go. Possibly costly.

On the subject of Passat interiors – giving mine a good clean recently it’s frankly astonishing how good its condition is after 8 years and 100k miles. Even the driver seat looks new. The dash was creaking annoyingly over bumps, but I removed the long thin dash insert panels and sprayed silicone behind them and its gone. Dash and trim is silent.

That suspension is a simpler system using oil filled sachs dampers. Seems to be a good choice much better than the allroad system. £550 quid a side fitted by VW though so check for leaking oil from the shocker if you decide to go down that route. I agree with the interior aspect they are superb, not sure its worth putting up with everything else though. Think i’ll probably go down the Honda Accord estate petrol route. Dull but reliable.