I had new rear discs and pads fitted last week by my local Audi/VW specialist. The pads were down to 2 or 3 mm. When I collected it, they had clearly given it a road test. Drove it 1 1/2 mile home and all was fine. I went out yesterday for the first time since the work and luckily only covered 8 miles. As I got out of the car I was greeted by the smell of overheated brakes and wisps of smoke from the offside rear brake, which had obviously been binding. The wheel was too hot to touch. When it had cooled down the brake was free so I drove slowly back to the garage using gears as much as possible rather than brakes. The wheel was rather hot again, so it was extremely lucky I hadn't gone out on a long, important journey. The garage have a replacement caliper on order for today and are making time for it to be fitted. More cost, but hopefully the new pads and disc have survived! They were helpful, but commented that unfortunately they have found this problem to occur occasionally when the pistons on brakes with EPB are fully retracted for a pad change. It's unclear to me if the problem lies with the hydraulic system or the EPB motor system, but I'd not trust that caliper again so I'm happy to see it gone.
Have I just been unlucky or is this a known (common) problem?
Have I just been unlucky or is this a known (common) problem?
