Buying a newish Passat: Push-button handbrakes.

[JohnPierpoint]

Hi all,

I've been a Passat owner for some 20 years. My last one (a 2003 B5) gave up the ghost last year, and since then I've been "slumming it" with a battered, rusty old Octavia, just to keep me on the road. However, that car is looking rather expensive to repair, and - despite it having ULEZ compliance, which was a major factor in me choosing it - it won't get me into Birmingham's Clean Air Zone (CAZ) - which starts 1st June - without a charge. (I'm pretty annoyed about this because prior to the launch of the CAZ checker site we were advised by the CAZ team to assume that ULEZ-compliant vehicles would be OK.)

Now I'm looking at Passats again (and newer Octavias and Volvo V50 and V60s).
One big bone of contention is the push-button handbrake on newer cars. I've never used one, and I refused to drive a hire car several years ago because it came with one and I didn't trust it. I've also heard horror stories about the electronic handbrakes fitted to the B6 Passat in particular: tales of the brake locking on and the car being utterly immovable and unrecoverable. For that reason, I'm not even considering a B6. B7s, I'm not sure about. I'm also looking for a newer version for the CAZ compliance. I'm self-employed and short of savings, so I can't buy a new car with the luxury of a warranty.

So my question is: how reliable is the handbrake on B8 models? I'd hope that VW learned from the problems on the B6 and later models have been fine.
Can anyone give their experience, good or bad? I've had a quick search of the forum and only found one post about a handbrake problem on this model so far.

Regards,

John.

[Gazwould]

Not sure but it's the worst automotive case of it ain't broke don't fix it redesign , nowt wrong with the old handbrake .

My 03 Pissrat handbrake hasn't even been adjusted in 8 years , the old boys old B6 had both rear calipers , his newer car , one and a neighbour has one to do now .

[Crasher]

Birmingham city council needs kicking out, why did they have to go one up on the Central London system screwing everything up? What's the point? The next time the local elections come up, vote them out!

[Mittens247]

Our 67 plate B8 with an EPB has been faultless. Leave hill hold on and it engages as soon as you stop and press the brake pedal. To move off press accelerator and it releases automatically.

Touch wood it keeps working. Rear discs however are badly corroded after 28K and seem to be made of poor quality steel.

[Crasher]

They are cast iron actually and this has no choice but to rust, low mileage vehicles always suffer especially if they are kept outdoors, as the rust which naturally forms is not scrubbed off and gets into the metal. Because of regenerative braking, in the future this is going to become a serious problem that may see cars go back to drum brakes, that and the upcoming moves to cut brake dust emissions.

[MikeBz]

Our 67 plate B8 with an EPB has been faultless. Leave hill hold on and it engages as soon as you stop and press the brake pedal. To move off press accelerator and it releases automatically.

Strange, I've had 2 B8s (one mid-2016 and one late 2019) and on both of them hill hold doesn't involve the parking brake, it only maintains the hydraulic brake pressure in the system at the point you came to rest (the manual warns not to rely on this to hold the car for very long since it is only latent pressure in the system).

Does the light on the parking brake switch come on in the circumstances you describe? If not then the parking brake is not engaged.

[Mittens247]

Every day's a school day. Learnt that discs are cast iron not steel and hill hold doesn't involve the EPB. Well there you go.

Checked and HH is controlled hydraulically by the ABS sensor. If it detects wheel movement it will increase pressure to hold the car on hill. Most people just set HH on and never touch the EPB again.

[MikeBz]

Checked and HH is controlled hydraulically by the ABS sensor. If it detects wheel movement it will increase pressure to hold the car on hill. Most people just set HH on and never touch the EPB again.

So a school day for me too :-) I suspect that feature (detecting movement and increasing pressure) wasn't a feature on earlier cars, hence the warning in the manual at that time. There are some quirks which it is useful to be aware of - on my previous (2016) car, if you tried to drive away without putting your seat belt on then the EPB would not release automatically, you had to press the switch. Having released it manually, it then did not reapply itself automatically either which I thought was potentially dangerous behaviour. It caught me out once when I moved my car 20 yards from a parking space to a fuel pump without putting my seatbelt on - had to release the EPB manually to get the car to move, stopped at the pump and got out, whilst fiddling with the fuel cap the car started to roll gently forward, trying to open the door and squeeze in through the narrowing gap between it and the next pump increased my heart rate somewhat. I now always check the light on the EPB is on before I open the door, but I bet most people don't and there is no way I'm going to persuade my wife to do that.

On my current car if you unlock it & then put your foot on the brake for a few seconds without starting the engine it releases the EPB and puts a little warning on the central display to tell you so. Again this could catch you out if you put your foot on the brake to start the engine (it won't start otherwise) and then get distracted by something else before you press the start button and take your foot off the brake.

[Mittens247]

Only time I have been caught out is when I take our dog (Lhasa Apso) for a trim. He sits in the front in his harness but still always manages to turn the EPB off every time without me noticing. I then get out at the groomers and the car starts to roll forwards!

[Crasher]

Every day's a school day

Certainly is, I love it when I learn something new or have a concept corrected.