Hi,

I have done a quick search to see if this has happened to anyone else but have not found a related post.

I was driving to uni the other week and as I was braking for a corner, the brake pedal fell away and I suddedly had no brake pressure. Luckily this happened after I had slowed enough to get around the corner and I pumped the brake a couple of times so the car decellerated to a holt and I could reverse into a lay-by. I looked around all the wheels for any signs of a leak from the brakes, checked the brake fluid level and all seemed fine. I then looked at all the outer pads (through steel wheels so I couldn't see much) and it appeared that the front right brake had no outer pad, even though the front left had around 7-8mm.

I managed to nurse the car home (the brakes worked but sounded awful and the pedal went an awful long way before any heavy braking would occur) and phoned my dad to ask him to pick me up some new brake pads. Upon removing the front wheels and the callipers/holders, it revealed that the front right outer pad had no material on the backing plate and you can see 3 dimples in the plate (prosumably used to atttach the pad material). The other pads have approximately 7-8 mm of material, so I am assuming that the brake pad has come away from the backing plate and the pad disintergrated or dropped onto the road. Has this happened to anypone else?

Also, upon raplacing the pads and disks I found I had no prssure in the brakes. I bled the brakes in the order defined in the Haynes manual for a car that has the MK 60 abs unit and found I still had no pressure and then realised there is a bleed nipple on the master cyclinder. Bleeding from this nipple has resumed pressure in the pedal and explains why only a small amount of liquid was expelled when bleeding at each wheel. However, does anyone have any technical explanation as to how the master cylinder manged to fill itself with air from the story I just told?

I should also mention that I was using pads made by Apec (which have been used throughout the cars life since the originals), the car has doen 113,500 miles, is an early 2003 2 .0 litre ambiente and VAG-com states that the ABS system is a MK.60 (although God knows why as I have no traction control).

Thanks for any help,

Rob

The pad material could have worn away due to a seized brake calliper, once it gets to a critical level its possible tha the pad material cracked and then disintegrated.

When I swapped my original pads back in 2007/8 I took the caliper off and the pad just fell away and was dangling by the sensor wire lol, didnt use a hammer or anything and there was life left in them, just they had come away from the backing.