Hi,

I've had a problem with my brakes for a while where i'm getting a lot of pedal travel before getting any bite. I tried the ABS bleed procedure this weekend but I wasn't exactly certain about the procedure. The first thing it tells you to do is depress the brake pedal and hold. Then after a few seconds the pedal begins pushing back against your foot. Am I supposed to hold the pedal down while it's doing this or let it come back up?

TIA

I'd be interested to know this too as I'll be fitting new brakes and braided hoses and so would like to bleed the full system from the calipers and the abs pump.  Bleeding from the calipers is simple enough using a gunson bleed kit, but I've no idea how to do the abs part?

Update!

Tried the procedure again last night as I thought that when the pedal is pushing back against your foot it might be doing some sort of adjustment. So I ran through the procedure a few times but kept my foot pushing against the pedal as it was pushing back. Didn't bleed the calipers as that was done last weekend a no air was coming out. RESULT! Pedal has come back a lot firmer. I now get almost instant bite when I put my foot on the pedal as I used to.

I'm trying to get some sort of confirmation from ross-tech as to what it's done during this procedure and will post up any feedback I get.

Do you have a link/guide for the procedure, or is it as simple as holding your foot on the pedal?

Ross tech have it listed on their site although they make it sound a lot more simple than it is.

This is from memory so I may get it slightly wrong, oh and perform at your own risk. I'm just describing the procedure and what I did. If in doubt, take it to a garage!

Key in ignition and turned on, but car not running.

Go into the ABS Brakes section.

Click on basic settings.

On the 'group' bit click up to set it from 000 to 001. It will then say about pressing and holding the pedal. Press the pedal and hold, after a short delay you'll feel the pedal push back against your foot. Hold the pedal down until it stops pushing against your foot. There's a noise from somewhere while this is happening, not sure what from, that's what I want to know from Ross Tech.

I can't remember if you then have to click to go from 001 to 002 or whether that happens when automatically. Anyway, it will then tell you to open both front caliper bleed nipples.

Then when you click from 002 to 003 you'll here the abs pump activate for about 10secs. This will pump fluid through so make sure you can keep your resevoir topped up!

Once that has finished I think it tells you to pump the brake pedal 10 times. Again, this is pumping fluid through so keep an eye on that resevoir.

Then it will tell you to close the bleed nipples.

If you carry on it will cycle through these steps. I did it four times and then gave up as I wasn't sure how long it was going to go on for. Again, trying to get Ross Tech to fill me in on that point.

As I mentioned, I did this last night but without the opening of the bleed nipples and pumping the brake pedal and it's reduced the pedal travel back to how I think it should be. I can only assume that the first step is adjusting the pedal travel somehow.

Cool - I know nowt about VAGCOM, so I wouldn't touch it myself. However, since my stoppers were put on and bedded in, the peddle travel is longer than I'd like although the actual power is fine.. so I guess it just wants adjusting?

Need to find out if this can be done on the MKV.

Thanks.

Possibly, try a dealer or better still, an independant specialist.

Will do, it's in Votex next week for a 1000 mile check and re-bleed so I'll ask about it.

Funny thing is when I collected it, the pedal was really high, so I know it isn't the brakes themselves. I did the drive home and found somewhere safe to do the 6x stops from 60 for the bedding in, that caused it to drop. So I imagine I've just run some more air around that was locked further up the system?

 Hmmm, maybe. I take it you've checked the brake fluid level is ok?

adi nuff did you do this with the car on the ground?

was going to say the same^^^

dosnt it have to have all 4 wheels off the floor?

ian

Cool,

I'm gonna try and give this a go at the weekend/

I've only got one trolley jack though,,so am i still able to perform the VAGcom thing with only being able to undo one brake nipple at a time??

Adi has listed the correct ABS bleed procedure in VAG-COM however you have to cycle through this process 17 times. I know this seems a lot but when you have gone through the cycle 17 times VAG-COM will tell you that the process is finished and that the ABS bleed procedure is complete. If you measure how much fluid has come out of the calipers it will be exactly one litre out of each. Clever Germans

I had to do this last summer and although you end up with a sore leg from pumping the pedal so many times you will have a proper pedal feel at the end of it all

I did it with the car on the floor and had no problems. I just bleed the rears up as normal with a pressure bleeder and then did the fronts via VAG-COM twice for good measure

No you have to have both front wheels off at once and it is far, far easier if you have someone to help you. It really is a two man job. One person to work VAG-COM and pump the pedal and the other to keep the brake fluid topped up and attend to the nipples

Where did you get the number '17' weaver?

weaver:

No you have to have both front wheels off at once and it is far, far easier if you have someone to help you. It really is a two man job. One person to work VAG-COM and pump the pedal and the other to keep the brake fluid topped up and attend to the nipples

Weaver - Email sent via forum and it might have got chopped in half - did you get it if so could you give me a pm or email mate

afro gti:

adi nuff did you do this with the car on the ground?

The other night when I re-tried it without bleeding (just to test my theory on the pedal adjustment) I had all four wheels on the floor.

But as Weaver says, you just need the front wheels off to bleed the front calipers during the actual ABS bleed procedure done with VAG COM. But it's a good idea to flush out the rears while you're at it.

ADi Nuff Valves:

afro gti:

adi nuff did you do this with the car on the ground?

The other night when I re-tried it without bleeding (just to test my theory on the pedal adjustment) I had all four wheels on the floor.

But as Weaver says, you just need the front wheels off to bleed the front calipers during the actual ABS bleed procedure done with VAG COM. But it's a good idea to flush out the rears while you're at it.

Thanks my brakes front/rear have been bled the standard way but the pedal is currently travelling to the floor. So I was hoping to get someone to perform the ABS bleed in the hope that the firmness would return. Brakes feel to dangerous to drive at the moment and the garage that changed my fluids didn't have access to vagcom

17 - because that's how many times it takes for the process to pump 1 litre of fluid from each front caliper. VAG-COM will tell you when you have finished anyway. You'll end up with a firm pedal and strong right leg if you follow the  procedure through correctly. This is the only way to get ALL the air out of the ABS pump and get your pedal feeling factory again.

Dave all I got is an email saying "Bloody forum just sent 1/2 a message, did yo get it??" LOL. I'll drop you a PM now.

fro - this is the only way you will get the pedal to feel correct again. If you have had the front calipers off and allowed air back in to the ABS pump you will never get it out using standard bleed techniques.

Normal garages will not know this and most specialists don't either in my experience. They think that you run the procedure in VAG-COM once or twice and that's it and never follow it to the end. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that, it doesn't help that the instructions on the Ross-Tech are rubbish. I keep meaning to get in touch and tell them to update the info to make it clearer.

You will need the full release of VAG-COM as the shareware version doesn't allow you to run the ABS bleed procedure.

My normal way of doing this is, pressure bleed the rear calipers and then run through the VAG-COM bleed on the front. I normally do the fronts twice just to be sure and it also has the bonus of winding my mate up as he has to constantly move from caliper to caliper

 Ther ABS air bleed procedure VIA VAGCOM is only necessary if you have messed up the initial bleeding procedure.  I have done this many times using the easibleed kit.

Problems usually arise when the fluid in the resovior gets too low and allows air to be drawn into the ABS pump.  If you bleed the brakes properly then you dont actually need the ABS pump bleed procedure but it doesnt hurst to do it now and again.

Its the same for MK5 golfs when changing the brakes.

Also just running the ABS pump bleed procedure and not bleeding the brakes will do nothing at all.  You need to open the nipples on the calipers to actually make a difference.

If you have a easibleed kit then you dont need to do it 17 times either..

And yes you have to do it whilst the vehiacle is off the ground.

Black I completely agree.

It is only necessary to bleed the ABS pump if air has been allowed in to the pump in the first place, either by disassembly or an error in the initial bleed procedure. You can perform a fluid change with a standard pressure bleeder and as long as you do it correctly you will have no need for VAG-COM.

thanks for all the info guys looks like i'll be rebleeding my brakes myself PROPERLY this tonight

Maybe I should get my money back from the garage

afro gti:

thanks for all the info guys looks like i'll be rebleeding my brakes myself PROPERLY this tonight

Maybe I should get my money back from the garage

I often find rather than arguing with them to try and get your money back you could take it back and show them how to do it properly they might ;learn something and thats also depends on if the mechanic is pompous jumped up "dont tell me how to do my job" type..  Not many like giving money back so I'd try and work with them its only 10 mins a side on a ramp....

fro- If the garage have bled the rears using the normal method then they should be fine. I'd probably still re-do them just to be on the safe side.

With regards to the front brakes, it isn't really the garages fault. Mk4 and Mk5 Golf's have a very odd brake setup so unless you are dealing with them everyday you really wouldn't know that the standard bleeding methods wouldn't work. As I said a lot of specialists do not know how to bleed them properly either. I have seen several cars that have had LCR Brembos "fitted" and have had a terrible pedal that is soft and spongy and almost hits the floor.

Let us know how you get on tonight. Remember you will need several litres of brake fluid as you will be pumping a lot though the system

i think you should they sound like flipping fools. hope they didnt damage the master cylinder if they did a manual foot pump exercise.

weaver:

Black I completely agree.

It is only necessary to bleed the ABS pump if air has been allowed in to the pump in the first place, either by disassembly or an error in the initial bleed procedure. You can perform a fluid change with a standard pressure bleeder and as long as you do it correctly you will have no need for VAG-COM.

Although I agree this is probably true there is definitely something else happening during the process. I believe the first part of the ABS bleed cycle where it tells you to 'depress the pedal and hold......' is doing some sort of adjustment to the brake pedal. I've contacted Ross Tech to see if they could tell me but they seem to be skirting around my question and telling me to refer to the erWin manual for my car.

hotboy it's unlikely that anything has been damaged. As Black said it might be better to go back and show them how to sort the problem. It does make the job easier if you do it on a ramp.

ADi - as far as I understand you are just pressurising the system with the pedal and then the ABS pump runs and forces the fluid out of the system along with any trapped air. Pumping the pedal ten times just pushes more fluid through. It has nothing to do with adjusting the pedal. The only pedal "adjustment"/better pedal feels comes from the fact you are pushing fluid through the system rather than compressing the trapped air when you put your foot on the brake.

Don't forget the Ross-Tech boys are software engineers not mechanics so they do not know the ins and outs of all the mechanics of our cars unlike us spanner monkeys

Sorted! well it will be. I'll take it to AMD tomorrow morning no doubt they'll have it back to normal in a jiffy.

The garage I went to said they are VAG specialists, I asked them about bleeding with VAGCOM they said it's not needed

 let us know how you get on with rebleeding them afro..

 my pedal had mega travel too until I changed the brake fluid and rebled the system then it was fine.. VAGCOM was not necessary, and that was after changing front AND rear calipers and discs..

It's only necessary to bleed using VAG-COM if you have got air in the ABS pump. adz you were probably OK because you didn't get any air in the pump in the first place.

fro - you should have a go yourself tonight. It really is quite easy and doesn't take that long. You might save yourself a few quid. If you do end up going to AMD just make sure that they know they need to do the full VAG-COM ABS pump bleed procedure. I'm sure they know what they are doing but it's always good to be sure

yea weaver I spoke to AMD (they know what their doing ) they've looked after my car pretty well in the past - mostly mopping up after other local mechanics. Anyway i'd rather they sort it and it be 100% right as I often have my son and other kids in the car.

I'm hoping it doesn't cost too much as I already have the brake fluid and a bled system

I did my discs/pads myself that was well easy compared to all this brake bleeding

BlackMagic20vt:

 Ther ABS air bleed procedure VIA VAGCOM is only necessary if you have messed up the initial bleeding procedure.  I have done this many times using the easibleed kit.

Problems usually arise when the fluid in the resovior gets too low and allows air to be drawn into the ABS pump.  If you bleed the brakes properly then you dont actually need the ABS pump bleed procedure but it doesnt hurst to do it now and again.

Its the same for MK5 golfs when changing the brakes.

Also just running the ABS pump bleed procedure and not bleeding the brakes will do nothing at all.  You need to open the nipples on the calipers to actually make a difference.

If you have a easibleed kit then you dont need to do it 17 times either..

And yes you have to do it whilst the vehiacle is off the ground.

 

exactly

afro gti:

yea weaver I spoke to AMD (they know what their doing ) they've looked after my car pretty well in the past - mostly mopping up after other local mechanics. Anyway i'd rather they sort it and it be 100% right as I often have my son and other kids in the car.

I'm hoping it doesn't cost too much as I already have the brake fluid and a bled system

I did my discs/pads myself that was well easy compared to all this brake bleeding

Good luck, keep us all update how it goes. 

I'm going to be doing a full swap of all my calipers in the next few weeks

weaver:

hotboy it's unlikely that anything has been damaged. As Black said it might be better to go back and show them how to sort the problem. It does make the job easier if you do it on a ramp.

ADi - as far as I understand you are just pressurising the system with the pedal and then the ABS pump runs and forces the fluid out of the system along with any trapped air. Pumping the pedal ten times just pushes more fluid through. It has nothing to do with adjusting the pedal. The only pedal "adjustment"/better pedal feels comes from the fact you are pushing fluid through the system rather than compressing the trapped air when you put your foot on the brake.

Don't forget the Ross-Tech boys are software engineers not mechanics so they do not know the ins and outs of all the mechanics of our cars unlike us spanner monkeys

Yeah maybe you're right. All I know is that I did a few cycles of the process the other night and didn't bleed any fluid and the travel has been reduced.

Feel like I should run through the whole thing again with the eazibleed to be sure.