vw golf brake failure

geezer1234

I have a '08 VW Golf which I bought new last year.

The other day I was driving through town approaching a roundabout when the brakes failed completely. The brake pedal felt completely solid with no travel whatsoever. It was as if there was a block of wood underneath the pedal blocking it ( there wasn't!). Luckily enough I was going slowly enough so I could pull over to the side of the road and stop the car with the handbrake. It could have been much worse.

Anyhow I got the car towed to the vw dealer dealer today and they phoned me to say the car is fixed and ready for collection. I asked to speak to the service manager to get an explanation but was told he was not available. All the lady could say was that a vacuum hose need to be replaced.

I am wondering now how to proceed. I think I'm due some form of explanation/apology from VW for a fault which could have killed me or someone else. Am I over-reacting? Should I just accept the fact that its fixed and move on?

Tipsy Mac

Was it out of brake fluid?

Dazzler88

geezer1234 wrote: »

Am I over-reacting? Should I just accept the fact that its fixed and move on?

i tink u are over reacting,at the end of the day u werent hurt or injured..Imagine u wer driving along the road and a tree fell and struck ur car,act of nature.dez things happen,once its under warranty i wudnt worry..

Anan1

OP - it sounds to me as though you lost servo assistance to the brakes when a hose failed. The brakes would still have worked, but you'd have to press the pedal a lot harder for the same stopping power. That being said, i'd be angry too - a simple apology & explanation would cost the garage nothing.

Dazzler88 wrote: »

i tink u are over reacting,at the end of the day u werent hurt or injured..Imagine u wer driving along the road and a tree fell and struck ur car,act of nature.dez things happen,once its under warranty i wudnt worry..

Where to even start? des things shouldn't happen.

EPM

Dazzler88 wrote: »

i tink u are over reacting,at the end of the day u werent hurt or injured

Thats not the point. If it had happened at a higher speed he could have killed himself and others around him.

OP, you're right to be p1ssed off about this but you wont get any satisfactions. It's a warranty job like any other to them. Still a letter to VW might get you something as a sweetener

Dazzler88

Anan1 wrote: »

Where to even start? des things shouldn't happen.

i wudnt panic lads..if we all spent our lives worrying bout what cud happen we wud all be nuts..No point in stalling on the 'What If's'

Eoin

Ficus wrote: »

How about "stalling" to the nearest bookshop for a dictionary?

This isn't the English forum.

@Dazzler88 - no txtspk please though.

geezer1234

I'm not the type of person to make a big deal out of things normally. Its just that I'm not happy that such a fault could happen on a 1 year old car thats just after been serviced for the second time in a year. Should the braking system have a single point of failure like that? I'm nearly 100% sure I had no braking whatsoever no matter how hard I pushed on the pedal. It was as solid as a rock.

If I get a satisfactory explaination/apology from the dealer when I pick it up I'll probably leave it at that. I've a feeling I wont though.

Thanks for the advice.

Anan1

geezer1234 wrote: »

Should the braking system have a single point of failure like that? I'm nearly 100% sure I had no braking whatsoever no matter how hard I pushed on the pedal. It was as solid as a rock.

It shouldn't happen, but i'm reasonably sure from what you've said that you lost servo assistance rather than actual braking. Loss of servo assistance will make the pedal feel much heavier, but the brakes will still work. If you ddin't know that though, and weren't expecting it, I can completely understand how you would think that your brakes had failed. Real brake failure usually involves the pedal going straight to the floor, if you pump it and still get nothing then you're in trouble.

BrianD3

geezer1234 wrote: »

I'm not the type of person to make a big deal out of things normally. Its just that I'm not happy that such a fault could happen on a 1 year old car thats just after been serviced for the second time in a year. Should the braking system have a single point of failure like that? I'm nearly 100% sure I had no braking whatsoever no matter how hard I pushed on the pedal. It was as solid as a rock.

If I get a satisfactory explaination/apology from the dealer when I pick it up I'll probably leave it at that. I've a feeling I wont though.

Thanks for the advice.

I was going to ask if you had recently had it serviced. It could be that that vacuum hose was disturbed during the service due to clumsiness.

Brake problems on such new cars are rare, I don't think I've ever heard of a case like yours. You are right to be annoyed. It is true that the car probably did still have "brakes" and that you needed to push far harder on the pedal. However this is still a dangerous fault if you're not expecting it.

geezer1234

You could be right Anan. It happened so quickly that maybe I had some brakes. I know that if I'd had not pulled up with the handbrake though I would have sailed into the roundabout without giving way to the right

The more I think of it maybe I should just accept that cars are complex beasts and occasionally go wrong. I'll be interested in hearing what the dealer says though. I'm not going to get fobbed off with a one-liner.

Dazzler88

Ficus;How about "stalling" to the nearest bookshop for a dictionary?
my apolgises i wasnt aware that you couldnt read abbreviated English.I do apolgise if my early post confused you.

Eoin

Dazzler88 wrote: »

Ficus;How about "stalling" to the nearest bookshop for a dictionary?
my apolgises i wasnt aware that you couldnt read abbreviated English.I do apolgise if my early post confused you.

That's enough thanks, it's already been dealt with.

No more text speak either please.

Dazzler88

no problem Eoin.if only your attitude could be sorted as easy,relax man..:D:D:D

meesa

The same thing happened to my niece last year.
She bought a new VW Eos and the brakes failed :eek: so after the initial shock she brought it back to the garage( somewhere in Naas) and they checked it out and said that they couldn`t find any fault. reluctantly she took it back and lo and behold the same thing happened again!
She brought it back again and similar result again...no fault found.
She refused to take it back.
I will ask her what the outcome was when I see her later in the week and report here but I know she isn`t driving a VW anymore!

mickdw

Loss of servo will feel like you have no breaks and indeed you really didnt have any breaks. Without the servo assistance,you would never get enough pressure onto the pedal to stop the car. I had a cracked vacuum pipe on an old audi 80 once and I had a job to stop the car from about 20 mph. At speed the pedal woud have been useless.
I would enquire with vw as to whether there was any special reason why this fault occured on your car or is it a known fault? Really if there is any risk of this happening there should be some service action required or even a recall.

Nforce

I had a similar experience to the OP several years ago....a 5 week old Ford Transit work's van...either a faulty master cylinder or a burst brake pipe (can't remember) and I immediately lost all the brake fluid. At the time I was travelling down hill on a narrow country road at ~50mph...had to drop it down a few gears and pull the handbrake to get it to stop before I went straight through a T junction.:eek:

Anan1

Dazzler88 wrote: »

no problem Eoin.if only your attitude could be sorted as easy,relax man..:D:D:D

Drop it now, thanks.

Dazzler88

Anan1 wrote: »

Drop it now, thanks.

why so uptight???i have a right to my opinon like everyone else on this and how i choose to type/spell that opinon is my choice.

Eoin

See you in a week. Text speak is against the charter.

robert2010

The same thing happened me 2 days ago in our 2005 Touran.
After a 3 hours journey the brake assist went. I was with my wife and 4 kids but luckily it didn't happen when I really needed it. So I ended up crawling alone after about 5 miles it came back and it's been ok since.
This car has ESP and this has already been replaced by VW a couple of years ago as it already went bad.
I'm in Mayo at the moment and need to get back to Dublin after the Christmas, so I'll be trying to get it fixed over the holidays. Any advise would be appreciated.....

mickdw

robert2010 wrote: »

The same thing happened me 2 days ago in our 2005 Touran.
After a 3 hours journey the brake assist went. I was with my wife and 4 kids but luckily it didn't happen when I really needed it. So I ended up crawling alone after about 5 miles it came back and it's been ok since.
This car has ESP and this has already been replaced by VW a couple of years ago as it already went bad.
I'm in Mayo at the moment and need to get back to Dublin after the Christmas, so I'll be trying to get it fixed over the holidays. Any advise would be appreciated.....

You could check the pipe going to the big black brake booster at the bulkhead. See if that pipe is somehow collapsing or leaking slightly.
With abs and esp etc, I guess it could be an electronic issue too.

bazz26

Holy zombie thread, Santa.

L-M

Robert2010 please dont bump old threads, start a new one where necessary.