Handbrake

Hi All,

For the 3rd time this winter I have set off only to find the handbrake had literally frozen. The brake lever in the car is sloppy and clearly frozen in the applied position. When I came to drive it however it wasn't happy... I pulled out of my parking space and went about 10 metres stopped and got out as it felt like I had 4 flat tyres!

Anyone got any ideas on what it could be. I left it at home and got a lift in with the missus the end but do you think the handbrake could have frozen? There were no warning on the DIS or dash but it was -7 this morning. Anyone else experienced this?

Yes... this morning. Exactly the same symptoms as yours. Drove (slowly) round the block in 2nd to see if that would free things up, but that just resulted in smoking rear pads and an awful smell :(

The AA is on its way... I'll let you know if anything interesting comes of it. All I can think is that a murky, foggy day yesterday followed by a very cold night resulted in some frozen moisture somewhere in the cable...

Update:

Of course, by the time the cheery AA man turned up, the problem had gone away and the handbrake was releasing perfectly. Since the outside air temp was still well below freezing, I reckon that overheating the pads / discs / calipers on my short trip round the block must ultimately have heated the offending frozen bit sufficiently to free it.

Can't think of a solution for the future, except to avoid using the handbrake when there's likely to be a lot of moisture in the air and prolonged sub-zero temperatures. Can't remember having this problem on any other car, though I've had gear cables (which run dry on teflon linings) on mountain bikes freeze before.

Mine was stuck again this morning as the temp was -5.5. I've been googling and it looks like there was a recall a while back to fit some rubber grommets to the handbrake cable? Not sure where they would go as I'm a bit simple when it comes to cars and their inner workings.. I'm gonna ring the Audi service people to see if my car was recalled when it was with a previous owner. I'll let you know the outcome.

Thanks for the grommet info :)

Frozen again this morning, but I thought that might happen so I left the car parked in gear with the handbrake off. Stiff lever, but at least the rear calipers weren't clamped on and I could actually move the car! :biglaugh:

Clearly there's still some moisture in there that hasn't had a chance to evaporate with the continued cold weather. Looks like I'll be parking it in gear until things warm up, and then having it checked at the car's next service in mid Jan.