2004 Passat and VW complaint

Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with
24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I took it to the
dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped - I
suspected that. He then told me that while this happens a lot, it is not a
warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%. This seems
like an awful lot of wear and tear for a country vehicle with no stop and
go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only 24,000 miles. I
generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any thoughts? David

Notice a lot of brake dust on the rear wheels? The rear brake pads are a soft composition from the factory to reduce squealing.
Replace them with a set of Mintex (red box) and you'll get a lot more miles out of the next set.

"D&LBusch" > wrote in message ...
> Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with 24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I
> took it to the dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped - I suspected that. He then told me that while
> this happens a lot, it is not a warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%. This seems like an awful lot of
> wear and tear for a country vehicle with no stop and go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only 24,000 miles. I
> generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any thoughts? David
>

e-mail me!

"D&LBusch" > wrote in message
...
> Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with
> 24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I took it to the
> dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped - I
> suspected that. He then told me that while this happens a lot, it is not
> a warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%. This
> seems like an awful lot of wear and tear for a country vehicle with no
> stop and go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only
> 24,000 miles. I generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any
> thoughts? David
>

Yea , its normal..Brake pads aren't what they used to be, because they took
out the asbestos. Also people want quiet brakes. no squealing. So the pads
aren't very good. ABS allows the use of crappy pads too. I got a geo storm
gets 13 months, no matter what. There are better pads, which will last
longer and wear out your rotors faster. There are better rotors that will
last longer and wear out your pads faster. There are better rotors and pads
that will wear each other out faster. And there are better pads and rotors
that wont wear each other out, but you will need both feet to stop, or the
brakes have to be really hot. And any after market excellent pads are
probably going to squeal sometimes. I buy great pads, Hawk, but Mintex is
great too. because rotors rot around here anyway before the pads tear them
up.
"Lost In Space/Woodchuck" > wrote in message
...
> e-mail me!
>
> "D&LBusch" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with
>> 24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I took it to
>> the dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped - I
>> suspected that. He then told me that while this happens a lot, it is
>> not a warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%.
>> This seems like an awful lot of wear and tear for a country vehicle with
>> no stop and go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only
>> 24,000 miles. I generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any
>> thoughts? David
>>
>
>

"D&LBusch" > wrote in message
...
> Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with
> 24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I took it to the
> dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped - I
> suspected that. He then told me that while this happens a lot, it is not
> a warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%. This
> seems like an awful lot of wear and tear for a country vehicle with no
> stop and go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only
> 24,000 miles. I generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any
> thoughts? David

late model VWs use soft pads for less noise and also the rear brakes tend to
be biased a lot more than the front ones (odd, yes, but seems to be the
trend).

it's normal, but annoying. Try a different brand (probably means
non-dealer) of pad.

Nothing to do with the quality of modern pads/rotors or ABS with this car.
Braking in the B5 and B5.5 Passats is biased to the rear, this causes the
rear pads to wear faster than the front. I agree with the OP, this is odd,
but other have reported the same thing. Also appears that the pad material
is thinner on the rear pads than the front.

Does this make you wonder why VW engineering had the bright idea to put a
"wear sensor" and dash warning light on the front pads only?

On the warped rear rotors, this too is a common occurrence on these cars.
Happened on my '03 with 19K miles. I suggest you call VWOA and complain,
and let them know you know that this is a well-known problem with this
model. There was a time earlier when VW would cover this under warranty.

FYI, there is a great board for Passat owners at:
www.passatworld.com

where you can search and read about what others have experienced with this
car (but, a warning, it might scare you a bit).



"none2u" > wrote in message
et...
> Yea , its normal..Brake pads aren't what they used to be, because they
> took out the asbestos. Also people want quiet brakes. no squealing. So the
> pads aren't very good. ABS allows the use of crappy pads too. I got a geo
> storm gets 13 months, no matter what. There are better pads, which will
> last longer and wear out your rotors faster. There are better rotors that
> will last longer and wear out your pads faster. There are better rotors
> and pads that will wear each other out faster. And there are better pads
> and rotors that wont wear each other out, but you will need both feet to
> stop, or the brakes have to be really hot. And any after market excellent
> pads are probably going to squeal sometimes. I buy great pads, Hawk, but
> Mintex is great too. because rotors rot around here anyway before the pads
> tear them up.
> "Lost In Space/Woodchuck" > wrote in message
> ...
>> e-mail me!
>>
>> "D&LBusch" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with
>>> 24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I took it to
>>> the dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped -
>>> I suspected that. He then told me that while this happens a lot, it is
>>> not a warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%.
>>> This seems like an awful lot of wear and tear for a country vehicle with
>>> no stop and go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only
>>> 24,000 miles. I generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any
>>> thoughts? David
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

I suspect the reason for 'wear sensors' on the front is that your front
brakes are much more important to you than your rear brakes. If you
somehow lost your rear brakes totally you would still be well able to
stop the car; however if you lost your front brakes entirely the rear
brakes cannot perform very well alone.

Have you noticed that the nose of a car dips down when braking? This
means that down force is being added to the front of the car and really
helps the front tires gain traction. At the same time, weight is
coming off the rear wheels which greatly reduces the braking potential
of the rear wheels.

by the way, my 01 Passat had 'warped' rotors at about 20k miles. I
bought the car used and I noticed the problem during the test drive. I
negotiated the replacement of the parts with the purchase. I now have
65k on the car and the brakes have been fine and the rear pads are just
now getting close to the end of their life.

I suggest you put some pressure on your dealer (or VW) to replace
these parts without charge to you. This is not normal brake wear.
What it could be is that the original rotor was not running true. I do
not know of course why it wasn't straight but it seems reasonable to
assume that the rotor itself was made incorrectly. If it had
side-to-side (axial) runout then it would wobble and strike the brake
pad intermittently. These strikes create thin areas on the rotor and
you have a rotor that varies from thick to thin around the
circumference. This thick - thin shape is what causes the pulsing or
vibrating braking action.

This is my hypotheses and it is based on some first-hand experience
with my '95 passat earlier this year.

good luck!

C_S wrote:
> Nothing to do with the quality of modern pads/rotors or ABS with this car.
> Braking in the B5 and B5.5 Passats is biased to the rear, this causes the
> rear pads to wear faster than the front. I agree with the OP, this is odd,
> but other have reported the same thing. Also appears that the pad material
> is thinner on the rear pads than the front.
>
> Does this make you wonder why VW engineering had the bright idea to put a
> "wear sensor" and dash warning light on the front pads only?
>
> On the warped rear rotors, this too is a common occurrence on these cars.
> Happened on my '03 with 19K miles. I suggest you call VWOA and complain,
> and let them know you know that this is a well-known problem with this
> model. There was a time earlier when VW would cover this under warranty.
>
> FYI, there is a great board for Passat owners at:
> www.passatworld.com
>
> where you can search and read about what others have experienced with this
> car (but, a warning, it might scare you a bit).
>
>
>
> "none2u" > wrote in message
> et...
> > Yea , its normal..Brake pads aren't what they used to be, because they
> > took out the asbestos. Also people want quiet brakes. no squealing. So the
> > pads aren't very good. ABS allows the use of crappy pads too. I got a geo
> > storm gets 13 months, no matter what. There are better pads, which will
> > last longer and wear out your rotors faster. There are better rotors that
> > will last longer and wear out your pads faster. There are better rotors
> > and pads that will wear each other out faster. And there are better pads
> > and rotors that wont wear each other out, but you will need both feet to
> > stop, or the brakes have to be really hot. And any after market excellent
> > pads are probably going to squeal sometimes. I buy great pads, Hawk, but
> > Mintex is great too. because rotors rot around here anyway before the pads
> > tear them up.
> > "Lost In Space/Woodchuck" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> e-mail me!
> >>
> >> "D&LBusch" > wrote in message
> >> ...
> >>> Earlier I posted an inquiry about brake vibration on my 04 Passat with
> >>> 24,000 miles. Believing that it might be a warranty item I took it to
> >>> the dealer. The service Rep. told me that the rear rotors were warped -
> >>> I suspected that. He then told me that while this happens a lot, it is
> >>> not a warranty item. He also informed me that the pads were down 75%.
> >>> This seems like an awful lot of wear and tear for a country vehicle with
> >>> no stop and go. Rear brakes before front brakes - seems odd - and only
> >>> 24,000 miles. I generally get close to 50,000 before I need brakes. Any
> >>> thoughts? David
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >

C_S wrote:
> Nothing to do with the quality of modern pads/rotors or ABS with this car.
> Braking in the B5 and B5.5 Passats is biased to the rear, this causes the
> rear pads to wear faster than the front. I agree with the OP, this is odd,
> but other have reported the same thing. Also appears that the pad material
> is thinner on the rear pads than the front.

Well, that oddity probably could be easily explained.

Earlier, say 20 years ago, the car designers simply had no other
choice, but to divide the braking force by some 80% to the front and
remaining 20% to the rear, for the safety reasons.
As the rear wheels simply _should_not_ lock up earlier as fronts, no
matter what. So, you sacrifice some braking force, but stay stable on
the road instead.

Then came ABS and ESP. This means, the engineers could suddenly detect
the precise point when the wheels start to lock up and then make ABS do
something against it. Thus, they can use the rear brakes more. Which I
suppose they did. As a consequence - the pads and discs wear faster.

> Does this make you wonder why VW engineering had the bright idea to put a
> "wear sensor" and dash warning light on the front pads only?

Because it was always like this. It's a tradition
And the rears are not as important as fronts.