My gorgous girlfriend left the handbrake slightly engaged while driving and when she came back, the rear disks were glowing orange and the brake pads were smoking. She drove for about 5 minutes round trip. I immidiatly took the car on the freeway to cool the brakes off. Is there anything that I should worry about or get check out? Would this glaze the brake pads? HELP!

i did my burn out.. didnt release the parking brake all the way.. ran the quarter at full blast.. after i realized what a moron i was, i drove it around.. my rotors were bright red and my pads were smoking jsut like yours are.. i even heard clicking and scraping from the rear rotors.. lasted about 3 days.. then they were fine..

yours should be fine too.. but if youre worried, take a spin to the dealer, have them inspect the thickness of your pads, see if you warped the rotors.. this could be a great time to swap out the dusty squealing oem pads for a nice set of aftermarkets =)

I thought that on most cars the handbrake actually applied pressure to the axle and didn't use the existing brakes to hold the car? How does it work on an Audi?

On the A4, the handbrake moves the rear brake piston in so the pads contact the brake rotor. It does this via a mechanical means (not hydraulic like when you step on the brake pedal). AFAIK, this is how most parking brakes work.

Andy Hedin

warped rotors from the extra heat. If you can drive it and not feel pulsations through the pedal, then the rotors probably escaped without serious harm. The pads may or may not need replaced or re-ground. It is tough to feel how much impact the rear calipers have since they only do about 20% of the work. Have the dealer check next time your in if you can't feel any difference.

Good Luck and don't yell at your girlfriend ( if she's a keeper )

Mark 99.5 1.8TQMS

I would have them checked out, I have seen this happen to some other brakes and occasionally they will glaze(only word I can think of to describe it). After this they will not work worth a damn and I have been told they can crack and crumble(Not sure if this is true though). Probably did not happen, but you never no. Also I would have the rotors check to see if heating them to a glowing orange would have warped them. If so probably some way to have the warranty foot the bill.
On a lighter note, why is it most of the "gorgeous" girlfriends are dumber than dirt. Not I had one or two that could hold their own.

the rear rotors are quite thin, and if you re-surface them they just warp again. I've tried. You also may have boiled the fluid, but if you have no sponginess (did I spell that right?) don't worry about it. You can also cut the glaze off the pads with a file, as long as they didn't crack. I had a handbrake cable sieze once and had to go though this problem.

She is very smart as a matter of fact (senior finacial analyst at Agilent Technologies 3 years out of school.) Sorry we can't all be as unblemished as you and so impervious to imperfection.

Go find someone else to insult to make you pitiful self feel better...ya jerk!