We bought a nice looking 2002 Superb a couple of months back and it clearly needed brake work doing but was a good price.

I changed discs and pads straight away (good Brembos x4 and Pagid pads) and bled using gravity (so not to damage Master cylinder seals) with the ignition on (listening to that high pitch sound from the ABS unit). The pads I removed where unequally worn - almost to the metal on L front and R rear...not so bad opposites.

Presuming a bit of bedding in was needed we ran for a few hundred miles but clearly L front and R rear squeak more and heat up more.

I rewound the rears/cleaned again and splashed out on 2 new front calipers. Guide pins seem smooth. Now I've just bought a new R rear in frustration as it's rubbing again! (but not convinced it will be the caliper as it wound in so smoothly)It's also not the handbrake cable as binds with this fully disconnected.

I wondered about the servo - it does seem to work though. You can exhaust the vacuum when switched off, then starting the engine softens the pedal as it should (and not too much!) However I'm not sure the pedal fully returns up a far at it could? Is this a familiar issue. Could this be preventing those 2 opposite calipers releasing? Interestingly when you manually pull the brake pedal up as far as possible it affects the engine idling - presumably affecting air intake somehow. Is this normal? Any other ideas? Thanks

We bought a nice looking 2002 Superb a couple of months back and it clearly needed brake work doing but was a good price.

I changed discs and pads straight away (good Brembos x4 and Pagid pads) and bled using gravity (so not to damage Master cylinder seals) with the ignition on (listening to that high pitch sound from the ABS unit). The pads I removed where unequally worn - almost to the metal on L front and R rear...not so bad opposites.

Presuming a bit of bedding in was needed we ran for a few hundred miles but clearly L front and R rear squeak more and heat up more.

I rewound the rears/cleaned again and splashed out on 2 new front calipers. Guide pins seem smooth. Now I've just bought a new R rear in frustration as it's rubbing again! (but not convinced it will be the caliper as it wound in so smoothly)It's also not the handbrake cable as binds with this fully disconnected.

I wondered about the servo - it does seem to work though. You can exhaust the vacuum when switched off, then starting the engine softens the pedal as it should (and not too much!) However I'm not sure the pedal fully returns up a far at it could? Is this a familiar issue. Could this be preventing those 2 opposite calipers releasing? Interestingly when you manually pull the brake pedal up as far as possible it affects the engine idling - presumably affecting air intake somehow. Is this normal? Any other ideas? Thanks

They have direction arrows on them, if you fit the wrong pad to the wrong side all hell breaks loose, plus it's best to use Skoda pads, a lot of the lads I work with have had issues with non gen pads.

They have direction arrows on them, if you fit the wrong pad to the wrong side all hell breaks loose, plus it's best to use Skoda pads, a lot of the lads I work with have had issues with non gen pads.

Thanks for this info. I think I'll be needing to put new ones on as the current ones have been overheated from rubbing.

I note the master cylinder has 2 outputs - 1 apparently feeds FL/RR and the other FR/RL on the ABS unit. I am trying to work out if a problem with that would cause non-release on those calipers, or if it would be the ABS unit itself (hopefully not as hundreds to replace...)

Incidentally VAG-COM shows no ABS faults.

After many hours and many litres of Dot4 it was the servo all along. Water prevoiusly in the plenum chamber and rusted inside the servo. Apparently fairly common on Superbs, Passats and various Audis.

Now I've got an almost completely new braking system in the process!