# 2006 AND 2007 VW Touareg Brake failure - REPEATABLE



## [email protected] (Nov 18, 2010)

Dear Forum,
I have a 2006 Touareg V10 TDI (36K miles)... up until now the most amazing vehicle I've ever owned! A buddy of mine has a 2007 Toureg V10 TDI (24K miles) - nearly the same as mine. I have so far nearly had two highway accidents where my brakes have nearly completely failed (5-10% brake power when you want and need 100%) and have had a parking lot accident where I lost 99% of brakes while backing into a parking spot, unable to stop and backed into the car behind me 
I originally took it back to where I purchased the car in 2008 - twice for this brake problem. They could not reproduce the problem but, proactively flushed the brake fluid and examined the whole system - no problems found. I discovered how to reproduce it and I brought it to my local VW dealer - they also could not find any problems but, proactively replaced a vacuum check valve - no affect the problem still occurs. Apparently, there are two vacuum booster pumps on this vehicle which may need replacing. I was happy about that as it's still under warranty, until I tried this in a friends Touareg V10 TDI and his brakes failed too - I think it's a design problem and any number of pumps they replace will not fix it - I hope someone out there can prove me!

#### CAUTION ATTEMPT THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK - IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT!!! ####
The easiest and most straight forward way to demonstrate this BRAKE FAILURE is to be driving
down a straight road going around 30 MPH (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PLENTY OF ROOM TO COAST TO A STOP). Lightly but quickly press the brake pedal repeatedly like 10x in 5 seconds (slowing down to 25 MPH), you'll feel the pedal getting stiffer and coming up off the floor, and THEN STOMP ON THEM! You would expect the ABS system to kick in and the car to rapidly come to a stop. However, in both my 2006 and my buddy's 2007 neither car locks up the brakes or applies ABS... in fact I would estimate you get a 5% fraction of the normal brake power you've come to expect and trust. It's even worse in reverse... in my 2006 I get about 1% full brake when this happens.

You can usually tell when this is about to happen by the feel of the brake pedal. It comes up off the floor, the travel gets shorter and shorter, and it gets hard as a brick - and the brakes are barely there at all! You can actually reproduce the feel of the brake pedal with the car stopped and in park!

I understand that is not normal braking behavior however that is a method I have discovered to reproduce this problem - the brakes should still not FAIL. I wonder how many other VW's suffer this same problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Alex.
Wile69-at-gmail.com


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## GTijoejoe (Oct 6, 2001)

It sounds like you are having a vacuum problem.

By pressing the pedal multible times very quickly, you are taking all the vacuum out of the booster, the pump seemingly does not kick in quick enough to build the vacuum back up for boost asist, this would also explain why the pedal becomes very hard.

On desiel engines there is very low vacuum supplied by the engine or at all, hence the need for a pump. 

If a dealer can not figure it out, I would also call VW corp and explain the problem with them, this is a very serious issue that should be confronted as soon as possible.

This does not seem like a brake hydro system issue, I would put all my money on the booster/vac pump system.


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## DarthTTs (Dec 7, 2009)

Where are you?

Lemon law...

Also read:

http://forums.fourtitude.com/showthread.php?4500352-Tiguan-brakes-problem


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## tomd66 (Sep 18, 2021)

my 2008 TDI does the same thing. Very concerning when rolling down the mountains with a trailer. Did you ever resolve this problem?
I can duplicate it as well by pumping the brakes…





[email protected] said:


> Dear Forum,
> I have a 2006 Touareg V10 TDI (36K miles)... up until now the most amazing vehicle I've ever owned! A buddy of mine has a 2007 Toureg V10 TDI (24K miles) - nearly the same as mine. I have so far nearly had two highway accidents where my brakes have nearly completely failed (5-10% brake power when you want and need 100%) and have had a parking lot accident where I lost 99% of brakes while backing into a parking spot, unable to stop and backed into the car behind me
> I originally took it back to where I purchased the car in 2008 - twice for this brake problem. They could not reproduce the problem but, proactively flushed the brake fluid and examined the whole system - no problems found. I discovered how to reproduce it and I brought it to my local VW dealer - they also could not find any problems but, proactively replaced a vacuum check valve - no affect the problem still occurs. Apparently, there are two vacuum booster pumps on this vehicle which may need replacing. I was happy about that as it's still under warranty, until I tried this in a friends Touareg V10 TDI and his brakes failed too - I think it's a design problem and any number of pumps they replace will not fix it - I hope someone out there can prove me!
> 
> ...


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