Malfuntioning calipers ate my rotors and pads

Took the car in because the calipers were hanging. Driving the car all you could hear was scraping in the rear calipers against the rotors WITHOUT brakes being applied. First was intermittent then would go away. Took the car in. Service guy says I owe for new rotors and pads. "Calipers are fine" he says. I have to laugh. When I brought the car in everybody turned around to hear the scraping from the calipers pulling in to the service bay. Do I have any recourse? call VW? 10k on these NEW pads.

I would check the parking brake system for proper function first.

Sure it's not the e-brake cables? My oldmans were replaced under warranty for this same reason.

Dealer replaced calipers and rotors and pads. "Adjusted" e-brake. No explanation as to why the calipers ate the rotors even though I mentioned a dozen times that the e-brake has been a source of similar problems. Tires went bald in the rear as well, I picked up the tab. None of the senior "techs" had any explanation other than these cars have "issues". Please forgive my extreme use of quotes.

So who replaced the pads that had only 10K on them? If they didn't re-adjust/check the E-brake correctly, they caused the premature wear.
As far as the self adjusting on the rear disk brakes of of modern Dubs, there are 3 things to consider.
Hydralic: ALL disk brakes compensate for pad wear by keeping a very slight residual pressure in the system so that when you take your foot off the brake petal, the pads are still just barely touching the rotors.
Mechanical: (E-Brake). There is a ratchet in each caliper that compensates for pad wear for the cable applied part of the system (The ratchet is the part you have to screw in when you replace pads). The ratchet ratchets out to compensate for pad wear through the action of applying and releasing the E-brake.
There is an adjuster to compensate for cable stretch located at the E-brake handle.
If the cable adjuster (at the handle) is adjusted prior to appling first the foot brakes and then the E-brake several times, after doing a brake job, the ratcheting adjusters, at the calipers, could make the rear brakes drag after you use the E-brake a few times.
To check to see if the cable is adjusted correctly (Bentleys):
Apply foot brake forcefully 3 times.
Apply E-brake 3 times and release.
At each caliper measure the distance between the little arm the cable hooks into and the stop that it comes up against when the E-brake is released. The dimension should not fall short of 1MM or exceed 3MMs.
Spin each wheel and make sure that you cannot hear any dragging of the rear brakes.
Due to the automatic brake adjusters (ratchets), there is no need to adjust the parking brake after making the initial (cable) adjustment.

Made a turn today on the highway and almost hit the divider. Not cool. A few days after the brakes were changed, today the brakes started dragging without applying the brake pedal. Not a good thing on a sharp turn because the left rear was dragging hard and not the right rear. So the car fishtailed. Wife was not amused.

This is EXACTLY what you were talking about in your last post.
Back to the dealer on Monday.

I'd call VOA before I did anything because not only the origanal problem wasn't fixed, the dealer would not give you a reasonable answer to your concerns about the rear brakes dragging and now you have a safety issue that almost injured someone.

Tell VOA that your car is NOT drivable because of the improper repair their authorized dealer made. Don't go back to that same dealer without VOAs involvement. In fact, I'd be inclined to find a different dealer.

Something you were not clear on, was the original set of pads the ones that came with the car (factory}, or had someone changed them 10k miles ago?

If they are the original set (from the factory), and you were not driving with the E-brake on, I would DEMAND reimbursement for the repairs the dealer made. Should have been covered by the warranty.

The dealer ended up covering it under warranty after much "discussion"
Told me all this was a wear issue originally. As I said, they replace the calipers rotors and pads and adjusted the ebrake and a two days later it started dragging again on the rear left brake.

that sounds good. Maybe you will get good service, after all....................

Ol'Rattler said:

that sounds good. Maybe you will get good service, after all....................

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How so?
they said if they can't replicate the problem (which they had a hard time the first time) VOA will not allow them to repair the problem.

MalcolmBurke said:

How so?
they said if they can't replicate the problem (which they had a hard time the first time) VOA will not allow them to repair the problem.

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Dang, man...you really had some bad luck with this car...geez...

MalcolmBurke said:

How so?
they said if they can't replicate the problem (which they had a hard time the first time) VOA will not allow them to repair the problem.

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That VOA paid for the problem under warranty.

If the dealer can't fiqure out how to troubleshoot an intermittant problem, it doesn,t automatically make it your problem.

A complaint to VOA could be helpfull in getting the problem rectified properly.

Will do! Thanks!

LF06VWJTDI said:

Dang, man...you really had some bad luck with this car...geez...

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You think? So nice to drive though when it's working.

Replacing brakes and rotors every 20K????
i don't think so. The Jetta is seriously biased to the rear brakes and ESP eats the rest. Would be BETTER is there was a sensor to notify you before the rotors become toast. There are sensors on the front! Am I the only one with this problem?

158,000 km on the original brakes here ...

I had the same problem. First replaced the pad and adjust ebrake cable. then replaced ebrake cable then replace the caliber. Will see if its fixed. I being going 2 week with out a problem. 2006.5 jetta tdi 22000 mi.