I hate my parking brake
 

with a passion

problem with the rear brake job?

Another happy owner...passionate about his Audi.

Pierreb, curious to know why?

stay tuned. i don't know how much i broke it yet....

That's a first. Haven't heard of anyone breaking theirs yet.
 

Please share.

i have some pics to grab off the camera, so i'll do that tomorrow.

Pierreb;
There is a post where someone had an A6 involved in a head on, perhaps if the car is totaled you might be able to get a used e brake at a cheap price.

hey it's not quite that bad, but thanks :)

I'll post an update soon with some pics.

let me recite my tale of woe:

during my last LOF (81,000miles...yikes!) quoted $580 from the dealer to replace rear worn pads, says the rotors are fine but the pads are really low (down to 2mm). needless to say i'm a little taken aback, as I figure the pads can't be more than $100, tops.

so off to audipartsdepot I go, looking for the actual price. meantime, I had purchased the bentley manual (on DVD) and perused the procedure. also had recent testimonials below to go by and figured this one was within my abilities...

so Saturday comes and my rear pad order arrives (thanks Carson!) :
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7677/dsc2302.jpg

take the wheel off, and proceed to the vag-com portion, which is essentially:

- Open PB controller under Chassis/53
- Basic setting
- type in '10' for the diag cycle and click 'done'.

at which point, you hear the parking brake doing its thing as it checks everything is ok. no error codes? good! onwards:

- Open PB controller again
- Basic setting
- type in '7' to 'open parking brake'.

noise/whirring some more and I notice the right side (passenger) quits while the left keeps going...uh oh. then a 'beep' on the DIS (dashboard) with a yellow 'P' and a circle with a line through it...uh oh x 2....

Fault logged: Basic Setting failed execution, or words to that effect. DTC 1087, iirc.

Succumbing to my stupidity and curiosity, I decide to forge ahead and at least try the next steps which involve:

1. removing the caliper

https://www.audiworld.com/tech/pics/...nch_socket.jpg
(pic stolen from A4 brakes tech article. 13mm socket wrench, 15mm open wrench)

2. here is the right one removed

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1370/dsc2296.jpg

on the left is the brake line, on the right and attaching to the parking brake actuator (motor+gearing) is the electrical connection back to the car. I chose not to disconnect it during this work as it wasn't really bothering me.

3. close-up of the very worn pads

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2010/dsc2297r.jpg

4. old next to new

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/316/dsc2298.jpg

5. and finally new on rotor

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9295/dsc2303.jpg

At this point I'm feeling pretty good about myself, and turn my attention to the piston I'm allegedly supposed to be able to push back by hand(those are the word for word instructions in bentley, btw).

One small problem.

The piston won't budge.

At all.

I remember reading ct-audi-A6-3.2's thread, but I can't get the torx bolts to move. So I do the smart thing and put the old pads back on, remount the caliper and...

Try the other side.

I can hear you saying 'NOooooooooo!' right now, really I can.

Take the wheel off, take the caliper off, try to push the piston in...no joy.

This is the point where you should stop unless you have a) the means and ability to do a brake fluid change and b) the means and ability to rebuild a caliper.

(I of course, did not stop and dug my grave in further. Read on!)

Back to ct-audi's thread I go, cos I remember him saying he had to rebuild the piston and there's a 'trick' to manually retract the piston. I match the section in Bentley to what he was saying and proceeded to remove the actuator with a torx tip fitted to my socket wrench:

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/970/dsc2304.jpg
(the socket at the center fits a Torx 40 tip)

actuator

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/2110/dsc2305.jpg

Instructions say to turn the pressure nut via the center torx bolt clockwise until you hit the stop, then push the piston in by hand. I note with some despair that the pictures in bentley don't show the brake line connected...

and now for the facepalm moment:

during my fiddling I probably turned counter-clockwise and the piston came out even further!! Major uh oh, as now I couldn't even put the caliper back over the old pads, nevermind the new ones!

Long story short: had to be able to at least get the car towed, and that meant putting the caliper back on without the pads and saying a little prayer for my rotor. Unfortunately, I managed to pump the pedal just enough while putting the car in reverse/neutral to maneuver it out of the garage for the flatbed, that I popped the piston and the car bled accusingly in front of me.

car's now at the dealer where both calipers are getting rebuilt (something that most likely would have needed to be done had I brought it there to begin with), both rotors replaced (might as well at this point) and the now very necessary brake fluid swap.

Oh, for bonus points there's an outside chance the control module is fried due to my shenanigans too, not sure on that yet.

Hopefully I get her back tomorrow...

what flowers do you think I should get?

p.s. lest you think i could've used the traditional piston tools/c-clamp contraptions, the piston does not work with those. it doesn't even have the indents you'd find on an A4.

p.p.s. as it stands now, the very same PB system is in the Q7, Q5, D3 A8, the A5 and TT mk2 and possibly even the B8...we're slowly losing our ability to work on these cars mechanically :(