audijim113

I've read up on the issue of calibrating pad thickness when doing a rear brake replacement. From all indications, on the forum, it appears the last pad replacement did not follow the correct procedure. I bought this 2005 A8 several weeks ago. I knew the pad warning light was on when didn't know the extend of the likely problem. Drove the car for couple weeks and figured, I could live with the pad warning for a while. I also did hear the whir of the brakes a couple times when it was recalibrating itself.

I don't use the parking brake and haven't used on any car I've owned in 50 yrs. A comment on one of the parking brake threads suggested cycling it on an off a couple times which I did. When I started to move the car, all hell broke loose. Parking brake light started flashing and the "brake" light. Worse, the damn noise is driving me crazy. I've confirmed the brakes are not dragging and regular foot brakes work fine. Although I can drive it, the noise continues for a mile or so until it quiets. If I stop for a red light and start moving again, it starts up again.

Listening at each rear wheel, I only hear the "whir" on the left rear when I put it on/off. My guess is that it's the right rear. Today, I took it to a shop which works extensively on Audis and has all the electronic diagnostics. They said the right rear caliper is bad. It's $775 for the caliper and a couple hundred labor. Just what I wanted $1000 and haven't had it a month.

Not that I'm going to do this myself but looking at ESC, I see calipers for about $120, motor at $550 and whole thing a $625. I understand the shop will charge more and assume the labor difference would make it a wash to replace the whole unit.

I'm bummed at myself for not verifying operation of the parking brake before I bought the car. (again, it's nothing I've ever used). I had a pre-purchase inspection done by the shop which has serviced the car (they were aware of the pad warning light). A check off sheet indicated "good" for parking brake but I doubt if I have any recourse with them. Apparently, the system checking itself did not set off all the alarms but my cycling it did. That's a $1000 kick in the ***.

dvs_dave

Replace the right rear motor and it should be good to go. They used to be around the $300 mark for the part so $550 sounds expensive.

mishar

I have a spare caliper. PM me if you are interested.

jandreas

Most likely you have a cracked housing on the caliper. This has allowed dirt and water to get inside. And now the gears are jammed.


If you were doing this yourself I would say it is possible to dismantle the parking brake, unjam the gear (lubricate it when done) and plastic weld the (cracked) case. But it is a hell of lot easier to just replace it.