Rear Brakes Freezing On?

Is anyone else having a problem with the rear brakes freezing on when it's been parked outside in the cold?

Never had this problem (on any car), but I only have ever lived in the Northeast USA where it's probably not as cold as Alberta.

Interestingly, when I was a young pup learning to drive, my father taught me never to set the parking brake when it was cold outside because it might freeze...

Ours give a decent "pop" when surface rust from over night needs to be broken free, nothing that just rolling at idle brakes free and 20 feet of dragging the brakes down our hill doesn't clean up.

When I hear "frozen brakes" I think torch is needed to loosen everything and brake free, which has never happened.

I've had both rear calipers replaced on my Passat - 1 at 62k, the other at 80k

This a pretty common issue with VW, I had my 03 Jetta rear brakes lock up in 15 degree weather, I lubed everything up and installed springs to prevent it

for a b7
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-volkswagen-audi-parts/parking-brake-arm-spring-left/5k0615295/
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-volkswagen-audi-parts/parking-brake-arm-spring-right/5k0615296/

Rear brakes locking - emergency brake lines were rusted - water in the line caused the brakes to lock - replaced the emergency brake cables and problem solved

2013 Passat TDI - NMS - 275,620 miles - engine temp gauge moves past 190 but never goes up to 260 - dealer can't find any issues with cooling system - no codes for temp change -
Also - 2-3 hour drive - Red adblue light turns on saying no restart - kept driving - light goes out and code resets after 2 days - dealer has not ideas beside explore wire harnesses at $110/hour -search - not sure what to do - any ideas?

...start a new thread with the most important issue in the thread title.

dtreid said:

Is anyone else having a problem with the rear brakes freezing on when it's been parked outside in the cold?

Click to expand...

My thought would be that the parking brakes are NOT used every time the car is parked. Only occasional use can cause problems!