I just had to have the rear brake pads on my '02 Passat wagon replaced at only 28K miles; the car's almost 5 years old, but I don't get out much :-).
I always use the handbrake when I park and I assume that the handbrake actuates the rear calipers. Is there a known or suspected problem with the handbrake causing the rear calipers to stick? If it does, this also lead to rotor wear or warping.
Bert, that's about right for a Passat - the rear pads always wear much faster than the fronts.
I.
How long do you think they should last, compared to what? I have already replaced rear pads with as little as 15k miles on them and some owners get well over 40K. Also sine you only drive about 6000 miles per year the rotors can build up some rust if setting for awhile. The first time you hit the brakes it's like sandpaper rubbing the pads until the rotors clean themselves off. Also I think the current pad VW is using for replacement may be a bit harder than what the factory used and are made by TRW. My personal 99 GLX Passat had 40k on the rear TRW pads and should make another
5 or 10K before replacement. Bottom line... 28K, you done good!
Conventional wisdom says that it should be the other way around.
What's so strange about the Passat that it wears that way?
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Yes it would seem it should be the other way around. However, it often is not. I suspect this is the result of trying to balance the front to back braking force to give better handling under emergency conditions. Back in the old days (like 40 years ago) this did not appear to exist, but cars are more sophisticated today.
I posted this reply on another thread called "Awful Customer Service" just this past week:
I think this issue has come up before--premature wear on B5,B5.5 cars. I learned from a knowledgable source (dumb term, but that is what he is--had a lot of vw/audi products in his garage and other insider knowledge) that this occurs on those cars (and similar Audis) because of a relatively crappy caliper (pad carrier) design.
We went through two sets of rear pads/disks on our '99 passat wagon
1.8t in less than 50k, where the 2nd time the RR was worn to nothing and the LR looked okay (normal). (I've had quite a few VWs, but only a '95 GTI that also had rear disks, but has no problems with premature wear.) We would also experience a squeak from the rear while driving (even at highway speeds), which would go away with brake or parking brake actuation. There was also a lot of drag--the rear wheels did not spin freely.The bottom line is corrosion and rust on the pad carriers prevent the pads from moving back out from the disk after actuation. The only remedy is yearly (or more often) cleaning and lubrication of the pad carriers. After several years of dragging brakes they now are fine.
Lost > How long do you think they should last, compared to what? I have already
I have also heard that this is pretty typical for these (or at least for my 00 Passat V6) The cause I've heard for this is that VW used exceptionally soft brake pad material on the rear pads.
One reason I've heard that makes sense is that they did this to control brake squeal. Another possibility that comes to mind is an attempt to avoid frozen rear calipers, which were pretty common on the VAG stuff in the mid-late 90s (B4 passat and especially on mkIII Jettas). Softer material means the piston moves more, and since the life of the pads is shorter, the piston gets to move through the cylinder bore a bit quicker (over time that is, 28k miles here). With hard pads, it could be that since the resting place for the piston takes a long time to change, seized pistons/carriers would be more likely. That's all guesswork though.
-Arthur
Bert Hyman wrote:
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