Brakes Failed problems of the 2002 Volkswagen Passat

I get an audio and visual alert on my dash stating to �stop, brake failure� it has occurred many times while driving, turning, and parked with the car on. The car's brakes have never failed to brake appropriately. I brought the car into my mechanic. The obd 2 scan shows no faults and my mechanic says the brakes are fine and these cars are known to have a faulty electronic board which falsely alerts of a brake failure.

Cel 17887 brake booster failure. This causes a complete brake failure. Hard pedal and vehicle would not come to a stop. After doing research I found out this is a common occurrence with this make/model/year vehicle. The cause of the problem is the brake booster fills with fluid and/or debris causing loss of air pressure. The brake booster can not function without this pressure causing brake failure. I took the vehicle to a mechanic at a reputable dealer and they vacuumed out approximately 1 1/2 gallons of dirty looking water. There is still more inside the part however it is frozen due to single digit temperatures outside. After a thorough inspection of all clamps, hoses and other parts the mechanic assured me there are no cracked hoses, loose or broken clamps (no explanation as to why the booster is filling with fluid or how to prevent it from happening again). The mechanic states the fluid/debris build up inside of the booster. The cel has been reset and the problem has not recurred (yet). This is my 18 year old son's car and every day he drives the vehicle I fear this will happen again since there was no explanation for the occurrence the first time. Reports I have read from other owners state they have had the same problem on this model year. Why isn't vw being held accountable for this malfunction?.

On a very cold day (below freezing) in January 2013 while driving down my long driveway with a 4% grade, the brakes failed to stop the car and the car entered the road. The road has a speed limit of 50 mph and fortunately no car was on the highway or I could have been severely injured or killed. On subsequent warmer days the brakes worked fine. I took the car to the vw dealer in charlottesville, flow vw, where they found water in the booster pump and "removed cowl drains and vacuum water of the booster. " this problem is cited in a vw service bulletin on the the NHTSA website - p 9-66c8. The invoice did not mention installing an improved pollen filter seal as is described in the service bulletin. The dealer did not charge me for this repair when I complained that it was due a design flaw. This resolved the problem until this year when on another cold day below freezing the brakes again failed to stop the car when driving down my driveway. On subsequent warm days the brakes worked normally. I tested them again on a very cold day and they again failed. I took car back to the same vw dealer on a warm day and they told me there was water in the booster pump and I would have to replace the booster pump at a cost of about $800. When I complained that the problem was due to a design flaw as evidenced by reports of similar problems on websites including NHTSA’s website they eventually offered to lower the price to $500. I believe this is still too much to pay for what is clearly a very dangerous design flaw that allows water to get into the brake system and that the dealer had failed to really correct last year.

Got in my car one morning and the brake felt like there was gravel in the shaft-very hard and choppy feeling when depressing the pedal. Backed out of driveway and noticed a vapor cloud behind my car but thought it was due to high humidity in air. When I tried to stop the car at the corner the brakes didn't work quite right but the car did stop. Went a little further and applied the brakes to make a turn and my care started shuttering and lots of white smoke came out the back -actually almost enveloped my car so I had a hard time making the turn due to poor visibility and the cars vibrations. Again the brakes did not respond correctly but luckily was able to pull over without hitting anything. I sat there trying to evaluate the problem by pumping the brakes and every time I did so the car shook violently and huge clouds of smoke enveloped the car. I had it towed to the dealers and they called to say that it was not under warranty and charged me over $700 to fix. I also had them do the p9 recall repair at that time. I drove the car for less than a week and then had a repeat of the same problem! this time the brakes actually failed twice before I could get back to the house. I had the same thick white smoke and the car was shaking violently whenever I pressed down on the brakes. Again had car towed to shop. They are now fixing as part of the warranty to the brake booster issue as they found new leaves clogging the brake booster lines and found total failure of that part. The vw service rep said several gallons of water came out of my engine when they removed the debris. Their solution was to drill a huge hole to allow the leaves and water to drain away from the brakes! luckily, we borrowed my brother's van two days before to bring my daughter back from college (located in lynchburg, va which is in the mountains or we may had the brakes fail and gone off a cliff!) please do something about this-- it is totally unsafe and unethical!.

Copy (excerpt) of letter sent to vw of America: car history the car was purchased at danbury,CT vw 2002, put in service on 03-19-2002 and is still owned by the original owner (florian kahlert). The car is regularly maintained at vw recommended intervals by foreign car motors inc. And has also been serviced by riverbank vw in stamford, CT. All vw service actions have been addressed by vw dealerships (except the most recent campaign r5 26e5 which is still outstanding). The car is accident free and no after market parts are installed. The overall condition of the car is 9 out of 10 for a car its age. Riverbank vw in stamford performed the p9 service action on 10/10/2007at 40957 miles. Brake booster failure in cold weather in December 2008 (at approximately 51000 miles) owner experienced repeated brake problems in cold weather, which were eventually diagnosed as a brake booster failure. Upon inspection, extensive water and rust was found in the booster as well as the connecting vacuum lines and one-way valves requiring the replacement of the booster and other parts. Foreign car motors replaced the booster with a new original vw part 8e0612107e. During replacement foreign car motors also found that the drain below the booster was clogged with heavy debris, indicating that the drains had been clogged for a long time. Enclosed expert opinion by foreign car motors states that the only reasonable cause and explanation for the presence of water and rust in the brake booster is that the p9 service action did either not remedy the underlying problem or that the damage started before the p9 action was performed and the damage only became apparent in December 2008/January 2009. In either case, the reason for the booster failure is directly linked to the underlying cause that triggered the p9 service action. Based on this assessment I kindly request the reimbursement of incurred repair expenses:.

The contact owns a 2002 Volkswagen Passat. The contact stated that when the weather was cold the brakes would fail and he was unable to stop the vehicle. The failure occurred intermittently. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 58,000. The VIN was unavailable.

Spring 2008, experienced water in cabin due to faulty seals/drainage. Winter 2008, experienced brake failure related to previous water intrusion.

1) both failures occurred in wet conditions --- once in pouring rain after the car had been driven for a while, and once during the first drive on a cold morning (just below freezing) after an inch or two of snow. 2) in both cases, the brake pedal moved only a little (an inch or two perhaps?) and then became very hard, not moving any further with additional pushing, and providing very little braking power (perhaps 5% of normal braking?). Fortunately both incidents occurred at relatively low speed, and the hand brake was not affected. In both cases, the brakes worked normally again by the time we had organized ourselves to take the car in for service --- both times, this was days later (though we had not driven the car); in the second incident, we left the car on the street overnight before putting it in our driveway the next morning, and the brakes were still not working at that time. 3) in the first incident (occuring in August '07?), we took the vehicle in for service at a service station, learned of a vw recall involving water leaking that could affect the brakes and leak water into the passenger compartment (which was also happening during heavy rain), and then took the car to the dealership (piazza Acura/vw of ardmore, PA) for service --- they repaired the leak problem and cleaned the interior, but I am not sure whether they did anything about the brakes (we may not have mentioned this specifically to them, since it was mentioned in the recall). The car seemed fine afterward. After the second incident (on 12/6/07), we are once again having the car checked out at our regular service station (we have been impressed by their diagnostic skills in the past). So far they have not identified any brake problem, and we plan to take the car to the dealership next if our regular station mechanics cannot find a problem that would explain the brake failure.