VW Electronic parking brake problems

Borealis

Borealis

Borealis

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Looking for a bit of input/advice here as my father has a an issue with the electronic parking brake (EPB) on his 2016 Golf SV.

He bought the car brand new in May last year. Since then, the electronic parking brake has gone wrong 3 times.

1st time was on holiday last September. "Electronic parking brake fault" came up on the display along with the chime to go with it. When we stopped the EPB engaged. When we were ready to move off, the brake wouldn't disengage. Had to call out the AA. Escorted us to where we were staying. End result was I had to come home to get my car for the rest of the holiday. The car was towed to the nearest VW dealer and they changed a "failed rear offside parking brake motor".

2nd time was at the beginning of October, literally about 3 weeks after the first incident. This time parked on the road outside his home and again, the EPB was locked on and wouldn't relase. VW Assist came out and again, the car had to be recovered to a local dealership. Diagnosed as a faulty clutch sensor. Sensor replaced and car back to working normally.

Fast forward to a fortnight ago and we went away for the weekend. Parked up at the B&B, everything seemed normal. Got into the car ther next day and it bonged up with "Electronic Parking Brake Fault"! Somehow managed to get the brake released, not sure how. Got to our destination and the brake wouldn't engage. Jiggled around again and got it to engage. Ready to leave at the end of the day had fun again getting it to release. Got back to the B&B and for the rest of the weekend, switched off engine in gear with clutch down and foot brake on - this deliberately stops the handbrake engaing.

Got back home, called out VW Assist who diagnosed it as a "failed rear offside parking brake motor" again. This time, engineer gave my dad the error information - motor had failed with a short of live to earth. Replacement motor fitted and all seems fine. In the meantime, dad contacted the dealership again and they have took the car in for a full inspection. They called today to say they had examined the wiring, motors etc and had found nothing wrong.

At this point his fed up with it going wrong and can't trust the vehicle. We're going away in September again and we can't risk it going wrong in the middle of nowhere!

What should we do? If VW offer us a replacement vehicle (one of the options discussed), can we trust it not to have the same problem? Is there a known issue with the VW electric parking brake system? Or is this particular car just a lemon!

Any feedback is very welcome as we're kind of stumped as to what to do next!
 
I had a GTD with an electronic parking brake for 3 years and it had no issues whatsoever. I imagine you've just got a bit of a lemon. I miss the electronic parking brake actually.
 
The electronic handbrake is such a ridiculous invention and is just another gadget that seems to cause people trouble.
Car forums are full of complaints.
Someone I know had a new Astra and that went back 5 times in 6 months! And only on the last time did they replace it after it had failed and rolled into the front of his house.
 
Thanks for the reply. I'd already concluded that this car is a lemon no matter what VW say. My dad is trying to sort out what they can do about a replacement/refund but he's sorta lost trust in the brand now. This was his first VW after 30+ years of driving Fords! I think it really does depend if you get a lemon or not. My work colleague has a 14 plate Golf with electric parking brake and hasn't had a lick of trouble with it. The Golf SV was a new model for 2016 to replace the Golf Plus, which is why we were slightly suspicious about the issue. New models can have glitches/bugs that need ironing out, this might be one of them!

Part of the issue with the VAG electronic handbrake is that there is no way to manually release it if it fails, short of taking the wheels off and winding out the calipers by hand. The motors directly drive the calipers by a gear system. This means that said motor is right next to the wheel in a very hostile wet/salty environment. It's either water ingress causing a short (like the 2007-11 Passats) or the the actual motor burning out.

Ford on the other hand use a motor driven cable system. On the C-Max for example, if it fails you can lift up the console trim to find the emergency release handle. At least that way you can get mobile again and recover your vehicle to somewhere safe!

Booked my 15 plate Fabia (with manual handbrake) in for it's service today with the local VW service centre. At the same time I asked if they had heard of this issue with the EPB. Reply was that it is a known issue but there is no recall on it...
 
Been driving my GTI for over 3 years with zero issues. It is not a common fault and sounds like it is just plain bad luck with it.
 
Agreed, I reckon it is just a rogue vehicle with something funky going on in the electronics somewhere. They have supposedly tested all the wiring and couldn't find anything wrong. It's a bit of a trust thing now. Another vehicle should be fine, but you can never be 100% sure that you won't get another lemon. The consensus from all the service centres/dealerships we've spoken to, is that it's not a common fault, but at the same time it isn't uncommon either.

There is a software update that they've applied, but that was to do with auto-hold not engaging properly and allowing the car to roll.

@Finglonga, your GTI is the same age as my colleague's Golf. Like you, he hasn't had any issues.
 
I've driven Golfs through work for about 10 years. Sadly they don't actually come very high in reliability surveys.

Im driving a 1.0 Turbo Bluemotion for a little while before i finally get a car of my choice and so far its been wonderful. However, of the past 4 Golfs i have had before this i have had the following:

Failed super charger on GT
Failed Turbo on GT
Failed Gear box after just 600 miles on 1.4 TSI - whole gearbox rebuild required
Failed electronic handbreak on 1.0 TSI
Failed front electronic window motor on 1.4 TSI
 
@fastwunz which model year was the one that had the handbrake fail out of curiosity?

The engine my dad has is the 1.4TSI, in manual gearbox form though - he refuses to drive any sort of automatic!
 
Had a new Golf since June last year with no issues on the electronic parking brake front.
 
The sales manager was on holiday, so my dad has spoken to the branch manager instead. Very nice guy who completely agrees with us that something isn't right with this particular vehicle. Also turns out he lives just down the road from my parents!

The dealership is now talking to VW HQ about replacing the current vehicle with a new one fresh off the assembly line. The dealership can't figure out what's wrong (all diagnostics, wiring etc have tested good), so we're going down the replacement route first. If that develops the same issue, it'll be refund time.
 
It's more than likely not this because it's displaying a fault message but to take the handbrake off you need to either be:

1. Seatbelted up
2. Foot on brake and press button.

As I say I know you're probably doing them steps but just in case it was an easy fix!
 
You're quite right. Those were the first things we tried when it went wrong!

Heck, when we parked up at the B&B and turned everything off, there were no faults, codes or signs that anything was wrong. The next morning, turned the ignition on and before even starting the engine it had bonked out with a fault message. Best bit was on the way home, as the car still thought the handbrake was fully engaged even though it hadn't wound back in (turning off with clutch down and engine in gear stops it winding the brake on). So every time we pulled out from a junction it would play a merry tune of warning tones at us!
 
My mothers 64 plate 3008 had a faulty park brake. Turns out the wiring loom was spilt. They replaced it completely under warranty and its been ok since.
 
I agree that manual is the way to go! I think my dad's hatred for autos comes from the older auto boxes that used to frequently fail. Getting a car out of park when they failed was kinda difficult. You have to love the DAF Variomatics though. World champions in the backwards racing competition!

Bit of an update. Personally, I think there's an intermitent wiring loom issue that no one can find. It would explain why it works fine, then suddenly fails. There must be tens of thousands of Golf Mk 7s out there, all with the same system. It's just plain old bad luck that we've got a rogue unit!

Got a response from VW HQ. Suffice to say neither we or the dealer are happy about it (the dealer is 100% on side with my dad and would really like to replace the vehicle). As the car no longer throws out any codes/errors (because it's been fixed) they are saying there is a good chance they would refuse to replace the vehicle. If it went wrong again, then the dealer would be very happy to submit an exchange request (and it would likely be approved as there would be a present fault). Any further failures and subsequent repairs would be FOC under "goodwill" but that is very subjective. Just because this dealer agrees with us doesn't mean another will if we breakdown in the middle of nowhere! They've also confirmed there is no way to manually release the electronic handbrake without specialist tools (we already knew that).

They've also refused to comment in writing as to how long a parking brake motor should last. Their excuse is the "differences in usage from customer to customer". The dealer has given a rough guide from their experience, but VW refuse to confirm it.
We now have to consider our options.
  1. We can keep it and hope it doesn't fail again (unlikely IMO).
  2. Have it fail and hope it gets repaired FOC under goodwill
  3. We could try to reject this "lemon" as per normal only for VW to reject the request.
My dad is now seeking advice as to what his consumer rights are with respect to a faulty vehicle. We have no confidence that it won't happen again, as 3 times in just over a year is a bit odd (twice within the first 6 months)! Fortunately, every time this has malfunctioned, it has been fully documented by VW as my dad has got it booked into a main dealer straight away and it's on their system. We really don't want to play hardball, but if VW corporate won't budge, then to get any kind of decent resolution we'll have to.
 
"hope it gets repaired FOC under goodwill"

It is a 2016 car, surely they would have to fix it free of charge if it failed again?
 
You would hope so! But given the stance of VW HQ, we're not so sure. Our local dealer would deffo fix it FOC, but what happens if history repeats itself again elsewhere.

However, given VW's stance on the issue that it is a goodwill situation (just to clarify, this is VW HQ not the dealer), we are slightly wary of accepting back a car that could very well go wrong in a very inconvenient location. At leat last year we were in the new forest, so it was only a 2hr train journey back to my place to get my car (to be fair, VW did reimburse us for this). If it goes wrong this year in the Yorkshire Dales, we could quite literally be 20 miles from civilisation with nothing but sheep :eek:.

Given that both a motor and a clutch sensor failed within 6 months and another motor went 6 months after that I would consider there to have either been a defect when we bought it or a design defect somewhere (my money is on an intermittent wiring loom issue). As there is no way to release the handbrake if it seizes, other than manually winding out the caliper and removing the motors, if it goes wrong, we will have a serious problem. At least with a C-Max, there is an emergency manual release - albeit hidden under a panel. Of course we could pack a trolley jack, sockets and caliper rewind tool just in case, but why should we have to?

Although we do understand that the VW electronic parking brake is reliable given the 1000s of vehicles out there, we have no confidence that this one isn't going to spew out another bunch of codes/errors etc in the near futured.
 
As annoying as it has been, I think rejecting the car as a result is a bit much.

It's not like VW want this happening either.

I spent 37k on a new VW Amarok in 2014. It went back 3 times because the reverse camera kept failing. It was annoying, I admit it didn't stop me from driving it but annoying. Rather than lose my temper I simply kept taking it back, eventually the dealer manager kept apologising, particularly as it's sold as a rugged truck, in the end I was honest and said you keep it as long as you need (They gave me a loan T6 Transporter) - so have it two weeks or more, so that when I get it back, I know it'll be fixed. But it must be fixed.

They fixed it.
 
From a personal point of view, I completely agree. Rejection is the last resort, if nothing else works out. If the repair holds up, it should be fine and neither party want to escalate this any further unless we have to. But it's already had a failed motor in the exact same location. I think there's something iffy in the wiring and I reckon if we get a second opinion from a VW specialist, they might be able to track it down. It's all fine and well that the dealer hasn't found anything, but as we've found it's an intermittent issue.

So far, all parties involved have been very calm and amicable. I can understand your irritation with the reverse camera failing. I'd be pretty irritated if a 37k truck kept having minor issues like that. The issue with the electronic handbrake is that if it fails it either doesn't engage (which is good) or seizes on. If it's the latter, then jiggling with various control combos can sometimes release it. The VW assist tech told us we did exactly the right thing by shutting down in gear and preventing it from engaging. It's 50/50 as to wether jiggling the controls will release it if it's spat out a fault.

My mum knows zero about cars at all, so it's me who's getting bombarded with questions left, right and centre!
 
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