Hi all,

 

I collected a second hand (~6.8k miles) 280 2.0 tsi DSG last weekend and drove it to Durham and back, about a 680 mile journey. On the plus side, it's a lovely car, it eats motorway miles and the 4wd was a literal life saver in the snow. On the downside, the rear screen demister doesn't work (the dealer will fix this so I'm not overly concerned) and the adaptive cruise control finds snow confusing.

 

Anyway, I didn't drive it again until today, so it had been sat in the street for a week without moving, and when I pulled away the pads were very stuck to the rotors on all four wheels. With a bit of throttle and a bang it pulled away, but the brakes were horribly grindy and slightly juddery for a while. Having driven for ~3 miles the fronts are now pretty much silver again, the rear left is still fully rusty and the rear right is half and half. The juddering is gone and the grinding I wouldn't notice if I wasn't listening out for it.

 

So I just wanted to check that I'm right not to worry too much about this? I've had it on previous cars (though nowhere near as badly on my old A4 Avant even when left for a month without moving) I appreciate the weather has been a particularly unpleasant mix of snow and rain, and it seems to be cleaning up, but there are quite a few similar sounding posts on this forum so I wanted to check if there's anything I should watch out for?

 

I did read on hear that it's a good idea to turn off the auto brake / auto hold and park on the handbrake and P, but how do I do this? This is my first automatic and I thought the S3 automatically applied the handbrake on parking and nothing else, but it seems to clamp the brakes on too and I don't know which of the thirty thousand buttons and switches with "P" or "A" on them I need to flick to achieve this.

 

Thanks for your help all!

51 minutes ago, Marklar said:

Hi all,

 

I did read on hear that it's a good idea to turn off the auto brake / auto hold and park on the handbrake and P, but how do I do this? This is my first automatic and I thought the S3 automatically applied the handbrake on parking and nothing else, but it seems to clamp the brakes on too and I don't know which of the thirty thousand buttons and switches with "P" or "A" on them I need to flick to achieve this.

 

Thanks for your help all!

You don’t need to turn the autohold off, once the ignition is off and the DSG in park when you open the door the green autohold light should turn red showing the handbrake has applied.

Thanks Kenny, but is there a way to stop it applying the wheel brakes when it's parked and locked? As in only have the handbrake and P applied. I assume having the wheel brakes applied as well is what's causing the calipers to stick to the rotors so much. 

Its a good idea to try warming the brakes a little, prior to parking... Gently apply the brakes for the last hundred metres of driving, if possible. This will add heat, remove any moisture, etc unless extremely cold and wet, helping keep the rotary free from moisture, hopefully preventing corrosion. That said, it is a common issue to see parked up vehicles with rusty discs... The rear will most likely suffer more as the main braking force is on the front so they get hotter and dry quicker. They also get swept, more. 

Handbrake parking will not really help as it clamps the pads to the discs. This is where old style, conventional set-ups are easier. Pop in gear, lower the hand brake and the pads won't adhere to the discs, so readily.

1 hour ago, Marklar said:

Thanks Kenny, but is there a way to stop it applying the wheel brakes when it's parked and locked? As in only have the handbrake and P applied. I assume having the wheel brakes applied as well is what's causing the calipers to stick to the rotors so much. 

There is more than one way to stop the handbrake applying when you stop and park up. 

 

You can switch off the autohold which should stop it applying. You'd need to remember to switch it on on your next journey of course.

 

Or you can switch the car off. Then pop the ignition on, then plce a foot on the brake pedal and release the handbrake. Foot off the brake pedal and ignition off.

 

There may be other ways of achieving this but I do the latter if the brakes are wet or I'm leaving the car parked for a while

 

Hope that helps a bit

Thanks all.

 

@boydee - that makes sense, I'll give that a go and see how it goes.