Shoofin

I've been driving my car for over a year and have never noticed this until now...when engaging the parking/emergency brake, it applies the rear brakes, but also applies the front brakes..At first I pulled up the lever quick and realized my foot that was on the brake and the pedal sank a little bit...then I released it and did it again and felt the pedal slowly sinking in...This is new to me...Pretty fkn cool!

iTimmy

Is it an electric e-brake engagement? If its mechanical, most cars under $50k are, it probably only has cables going to the rear and it is some sort of VW anomaly you experienced. Employing mechanical e-brake cables to the front of a modern car sound so counter-intuitive, but you never know. You can pull a front wheel and see if anything besides hydraulic brake lines and ABS lines run to the calipers.

ThermonMermon

thought you were going to say a mechanical arm extended from under the dash and gave you a jerk.

Moog-Type-S

Are you sure?

I'm gonna have to try this.

Shoofin

Nope, just your ordinary pull up cable actuated E-Brake

Shoofin

The people over at GolfMKV.com think there's something wrong with my car

iTimmy

I spent over a decade of my life in the automotive repair business and it doesn't sound right to me, then again VW's often did weird things and then seemed to heal themselves... This is the character people talk about when they speak of German cars.

ChrisQ1980

Parking brakes only apply pressure to the rear wheels.

FiveLiterCheater

It is a Volkswagon...so I doubt this is a feature but rather something mechanically going out

coconut

It could also be something wrong with your right feet, get it checked out by a doctor.

TheMirror

Yeah, that does sound a little strange....perhaps when you apply the parking brake, there is some kind of mechanism that lessens the pressure in either the brake booster or the main brake lines themselves.....for whatever reason.

All the cars I can think of with with 4-wheel discs have small cable operated drums on the rear hubs that comprise the emergency brake.

One thing you can do to explore this is get the car rolling at about 10-15mph, and then slowly pull up the e-brake with the button pushed in. If the car dips in the rear, then its likely only acting on the rear wheel parking brake mechanism. If the car slows evenly without the rear suspension compressing, then maybe the ebrake in those cars does apply the fronts. I can't imagine why though.

myron

iTrader: (4)

never heard of it. ask on vwvortex about it. but search first. they are more anal about using the search button then here haha

Costco

wtf

Parking brake should in no way apply the hydraulics, at least not in a GTI....

Sal's Type S

iTrader: (1)

I do emission testing in CA. some Vws, Audi and Subaru's have the parking/e-brake on the front wheels. I know this because i apply the parking brake when testing the car since in runs in DYNO helps stabilize the car. But on a few cars when i start to run test the brakes are on. The only VWs with the front parking brake were the Fox if i remember. What year GTI, its not the AWD model(R2 i think) because when the rear locks up remenber the whole deive line locks up

v6cord2k5

iTrader: (1)

Simply jack up the front or get the whole car on a lift with the ebrake engaged and try spinning the fronts.

Shoofin

I know, that's what I did today.....And the verdict is......
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The rear brakes do not have a separate drum for the emergency/parking brake like most cars today have. The compression of the brake pedal when pulling up the parking brake is the rear brake calipers pushing the pads against the disc.

Guess I did and didn't learn something new about my car today...

iTimmy

^^^^ A lot of cars do that, use the caliper to activate the e-brake rather then a drum inside the rotor. Personally, I think its a much better implementation(having no drum), in particular in climates like the north east.