I'm taking my fabia on a little trip to Skoda today. Yesterday morning i set off from my house and at the end of the road my brakes failed and ploughed me into a kerb. Luckily I was only doing about 20 mph and there is not much damage to the car but it was a main road I eventually rested in.

I'm sure some of you will say it's nothing to worry about, but I feel when I buy a car I never expect the brakes to fail. They are working now but they haven't felt right for a week or so and they feel quite sluggish.

What do you think skoda are going to come back with?

when you say the brakes failed, do you mean the pedal dropped to the floor or was firm, but the brakes were not stopping the car?

Did the handbrake work?

I thought it was most unsual for brakes on modern cars to fail - I thought that the front left and rear right brakes worked together and the front right and rear left brakes worked together - ie it's really only possible to lose 50% braking power unless your brake fluid leaks out - which obviously hasn't happened as the car is braking again now.

How cold was it - is it possible that there was a layer of frozen water on the surface of the brake discs that could have caused this to happen?

my car did the same yesterday morning cara! i hadn't drove it in about 4 days so when trying to stop for the first time it didn't do anything! good think i live in a quiet residential estate!!

few emergency stops later and all was good! i just put it up to the cold! although like you said its dangerous! cant think of many ways to prevent this....unless you wrap your wheels up at night with formula one heaters!

I would never expect something like brake failure to be acceptable in normal use. These cars are designed to withstand typical winter and summer conditions, ie they are type approved for use as cars in UK with no reservations/exclusions. Something must have gone wrong! The only possible exception to that is where a car has been bought for use in a "hot" climate and has been transfered to a "cold" climate - or the other way round. I think that there are a few differances to the car's build state between the two. VAG often use the term "optimised for cold climate use" when trying to squeek out of a tight spot with respect to brake peformance - I know this, it's been dished up to me by VW M-K in the past, seems that there is a different "cut off" region wise between the marques. In my case I was advised to get my dealer to fit more suitable Audi pads to my Passat - at my cost!! Reason given was that I bought my UK spec car in Holland - maybe its nearer to the equator than UK?!?

How old is the car, and has the brake fluid been changed at the two year service interval?

These are dual circuit brakes, and even if a leak develops, you still have braking on two wheels. If the ABS fails, you still have brakes, but with no anti-lock. If the servo fails you still have brakes, but with greater pedal effort to stop the car.

Very odd, and never heard of brake failure with this system, and it is shared across the VAG platform.

14/01/2009

Its quite possible that after some days with the car left outside, for rust to develop on discs and the first initial braking the efficiency is down until rust is removed.

Obvious pedal to the floor demands immediate inspection, or poor braking, a professional mechanic/garage, should be a priority.

seems imposs to fail completely imo

Thanks for the reply guys.

Moley - No the pedal didnt drop to the floor, it was completely solid and didnt move. Handbrake worked but its always sticking and grating.

Yegnold - it was 5 degrees yesterday and had been a warm night because I assumed at first they might have froze.

Wilfy - how weird! Yeah I agree, I wonder if Skoda will agree to pay for them for me. This is the 4th Skoda ive had and its never happened before.

Rum4mo - Thats quite interesting

MoggyTech - The car is under 2 years old and just had a service 1000 miles ago.

giandougl - It hadnt been moved for 2 days, but I would still expect to be able to brake a bit.

Skoda seem to think that it could be an intermittent problem with the pistons but that was first thing this morning!

If it is because of rust, then surely it would affect all the models of Fabia?

I thought that this normally happened with older Fabias and it was a rusted servo problem - due to the servos ending up being flooded by water in the heater plenum area - ie a build up of leaves. This one might have a different reason behind it though.

This happened to my Fabia aswell. The pedal went really firm and the brakes did not stop the car. Took it to Skoda and they replaced the brake servo pipe free of charge. Luckily mine broke overnight so noticed as soon as i pulled off the drive. After the new pipe was fitted the brakes were near perfect. Far better than they ever were b4.

James

one way valve in the servo pipe failing would allow the built up vacuum to leave the servo

I still to this day maintain a similar issue happened to me when I crashed my (Fabia) vRS at the time :(

Diesel Spillage, V Slippy surface Possibly !! The 5 Degs temp rules out ice ...

Dean

If the pedal has gone hard I would indeed be looking at a servo and/or its pipe work and pump.

Sounds like servo failure to me as well. I supspect if you'd hit the brakes *VERY* hard, it would have stopped.

Lummox, wasn't there a recall on Polo/Lupo for servo vacuum pipe failure that caused this problem?

The pedal will go very hard- much harder than a car that doesn't have a servo would be, and they need a shove compared to modern cars. Anyone who has had a Mk1/2 Polo will know what I mean, compared to a modern car.

Lummox, wasn't there a recall on Polo/Lupo for servo vacuum pipe failure that caused this problem?

Indeed there was, I had my 6N polo recalled for that very fault. Giveaway was a whistle noise when you turned the engine off.

Recall also effect Golf and Octavia 1 platforms, especially the 1.6 petro engines.

Would there not have been a recall on the Fabia aswell as Skoda paid for mine to be fixed without any argument.

Vacuum pipe split on my way home fom work last friday, can confirm you need to push hard on brake pedal to get it to stop :eek:

Sounds like you had some glazing on the discs/pads which would "dramatically" reduce braking performance, the sticking and grating you get on the rear brakes would also be caused by this, Could possibly have been made worse if the pads/discs or in poor condition, maybe your discs/pads are low quality budget ones. Or you might have had some sort of lubricant on the discs maybe someone sprayed WD40 on them or something.

This has happened to a friend of mine.

She borrowed my Astra (95 shape) once and she pressed the pedal only to find it sinking to the floor, handbrake was practically useless. What had happened was one of the rear brake cylinders was leaking fluid all over the drum.

I know the vRS has all round discs though, so I don't know what to suggest.

Skoda checked it over and took all my front brakes to bits and found no problem with them. The guy took it for a drive, ragged it hard, braked hard, abs kicked in and all was fine.

The only thing he suggested was to leave the handbrake off over night, (but still does the same) and the other one was just to wait until it happens again..... yeah because I want it to happen again.

So if it does happen again and I crash, could Skoda be liable?

Thanks for all your replies.

Recall also effect Golf and Octavia 1 platforms, especially the 1.6 petro engines.

And the 6K Ibiza, so I'd think that so far no recall for "rubber" servo pipe has been raised on this generic platform.

I had a similar problem once, that was caused by a stone between pad and disc, stopping the pad making proper contact. When dismantled, the stone was firmly embedded in the pad I had to attack it with a chisel to get it out.

So I thought it best to change all the pads at that point