I think this should be added to the DIY forum so when someone wants to do a rear brake job without a Vag-Com they will know how to do it.

 

Has anyone else tried this?

Is it possible to turn off the parking brake so it disengages, whilst disengaged, simply unplug the caliper. Will this not work?

 

I watched my tech do it with slip joint pliers when he couldn't access my ecu

 

Thanks for the reply

How did he do it with the pliers? I've read that you can do it by turning the piston which will wind back the motor, then the piston can be pushed back in.

Did the tech do something similar?

Edit: having looked at vcds instructions, they don't appear to require calibration for the new pads on the A5.

 

yes exactly that. and it worked well.

 

Thank you again for the quick reply.

I'm going to change out the pads this weekend, and will post back.

Edit: the snow put paid to any work over the weekend.

 

I can confirm the method Holdendaniels has outlined worked for me.

I replaced rear pads and discs.

I didn't see the piston spin, what I did was to apply current a little at a time and push the piston back with a brake tool. There was no resitence pushing it in. As soon as I felt resistance I put more current to the motor to wind it in. Repeated until piston fully depressed.

The spare battery I had was flat so I ran jump leads from the battery in the car.

This worked for me. However you work on your car at your own risk.

 

Hello all;
I have a 2014 coupe and am wanting to change out the brake pads because of the quick dusting issue. What years are your cars. I am just wondering if this will work for mine. Also, what pads did you all switch to. I don't track my car and am more interested in a low dust solution. Thanks for any help you can offer to this problem.

 

Good write up and kudos for working out a different way.

Other option is a cheap vagcom cable off eBay for a few £/€/$

 

Cable is cheap, but you need the software to go with it which is a bit pricey right?

 

SmittyBilt,

My A5 is a 2009 but I think this will work on your 2014. The electric e-brake is a simple motor. If you reverse the polarity the motor will spin backwards and suck the piston in. I put on all four wheels Akebono pads. They work great! Hardly no dust and work very well.

 

Great advice. Worked on my 3.0TDI. Didnt see the calliper pistons turn though

 

Audi Rear Brakes

Could you tell what I might have done wrong possibly after following your instructions? I have 2011 Audi Avant A4 with fresh pads and rotors. Maybe this is nothing but 1/3 of the outer rotor is rusty and the rest is clean. This happenning on both sides

 

Could you tell what I might have done wrong possibly after following your instructions? I have 2011 Audi Avant A4 with fresh pads and rotors. Maybe this is nothing but 1/3 of the outer rotor is rusty and the rest is clean. This happenning on both sides

Could be the pins the caliber slide on need lubricating as it sounds like you are getting uneven pressure between it outside and inside of the disk

 

Thanks holdendaniels, your method worked perfectly for my A4 S-Line 6 spd 2011 (2010/08)

 

Just did this. Worked perfectly. Thanks!

 

I just did the procedure outlined by holdendaniels and it worked like a charm. I replaced the Audi pads on the car with Akebono ceramic pads and eliminated the dust immediately. I feared those electromechanical brakes on my 2006 A6 and now on my 2009 A5 and it is a simple no brainer using this process. Thanks for the tip as it saved me the cost of the RossTech cable and software which is $347 now.

 

works fine.. i done this with my 07 a5 last night..

my tip for people trying this is to check to see if you have the wires on the correct way around 1st buy not removing the caliper 1st.. if it is on the wrong way it will just apply the handbrake.. simples..

and the positive terminal of the caliper is pin number 1 and to find this out just pull back the rubber boot on the plug.. so negative should go to pin 1 and positive should go to pin 2..

 

EBP electrical connections

I agree with Jack as below. On my 2010 Q5 3.2L if the negative pole is connected to the pin on the square side of the plastic housing and the positive (Red) to the round side, the motor retracts the internal piston hardware and then force can be applied to displace the brake fluid which is present within the system. This creates space for new thick brake pads. So I left the car in neutral without the parking brake engaged, removed the wheel, disconnected the electrical clip from the EBP, connected a 12v battery (as described above), let it work for a couple of minutes for full retraction, pull the brake's piston housing toward the outside of the wheel well (squeezing the brake fluid back toward the master cylinder, etc), then disconnect the pair of bolts aligning the brake to the rotors, remove the old pads, install the new ones and replace/reconnect everything. My advice (as Jack has stated) is to do most of your monkeying with the EBP while it is still in place. You will be able to see and feel how much space is being created by this method. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to these threads. Cheers, Chas P

 

Thanks for the tip - this worked flawlessly on my 2012 Q5. I pulled the plug from the motor and hooked up two alligator clips (with insulated covering so they don't short out), then spun the motor up before removing the caliper to verify the proper direction. You need to spin for 5-10 seconds to get all the way unwound. After I re-assembled everything, I used the brake pedal to remove play with the pads, then re-spun the motors reversed to remove the gap inside the motor - just in case the motor running long may cause some error. (It didn't)

For super-extra caution (because I wasn't sure if the computer would go crazy and activate the brake for some reason), in the Q5 there are two 30-amp fuses (in the right rear fuse cluster) for the motors that you can pull before doing any of the work. The owners manual tells you which ones they are.

After replacing the fuses, a few e-brake-unbrake cycles and things were good to go!

 

have we got a pic of the inside of the connector to see what size the pins are?

 

You do not need to remove the fuses for your ECU. You are only applying power to the e-brake motor which is isolated from everything else. You are removing the power connector from the car and only using the alligator clips to operate the e-brake motor. This is a very simple procedure. Do not make it more complicated then it needs to be.

 

You do not need to remove the fuses for your ECU. This is a very simple procedure. Do not make it more complicated then it needs to be.

As long as you pull the caliper motor power plug BEFORE you remove the caliper, and put the plug back in AFTER you've replaced the caliper on the rotor, agreed - skip the fuses.

Basically, you don't want some random ECU event powering up the caliper motor with the caliper off the rotor, so if already unplugged, there should be no risk.

 

Hello, I'm new to this forum. I have a 2009 A6 Q, 3.0. I need new rear brakes. Already did the fronts. Looks like a good way to retract the EPB. Thank you. My question is does this car need the cars computer reprogrammed using the VAG-Com or similar to the new pad thickness for it all to work right. One video I watched, mech. said this must be done.
Does anybody know. From this forum, no one has mentioned it. Maybe that's a higher end Audi. Just wondering.

Thanks

 

No, no pad thickness calibration on the A5/S5/S4/A4 models.

 

fitted new discs and pads all round to mine last night , used this method on the rear brakes with no issues ,excellent tip .


thank you

 

holdendaniels:

Your post worked exactly on our 2011 A4 Quattro. Thanks for posting. Looks like many others have enjoyed.

To any others considering the task of retracting the electromechanical parking brake, this should work fine. Just take your time and make sure to protect against shorting the motor. I placed a thin strip of plastic between the terminals to protect against one hand slipping. The motor ran for 10 or so seconds and then the piston started to rotate. Stopped here and then compressed the piston as stated, i.e., no rotation needed, just push straight in.

The motor will correctly set itself, just pump the pedal a few times to first extend the piston.

Norm Hirschey

 

works on a 2010 A5

I'm not a novice, but I was a little nervous to try this given the warnings, but things went fine with the precautions stated in the forum.
I used a rubber coated alligator clip, and then wrapped tape around a spade connector leaving the metal bottom open. That allowed me a larger safety factor. I made brief contact to check I had the polarity correct. On mine, to open the passenger side, pinout was negative to the rear pin and positive to the front pin. Reversed on the driver side.

Afterthought: If the car was secured from rolling, couldn't the EPB be shut off from the console and then worked on?

Another side note, I have a counterfeit cable that works for resetting the oil reminder, but said "not available" when I tried releasing the EPB, function test or closing.

Thanks for this post, great service to the community, hope I contributed a bit.

 

I tried this procedure with my RS5. DID NOT WORK. I had to limp car with compromised brakes to audi and get them to set the brakes with a VAG com. I think if I would have set the park brake, before winding the motor and then I would know to wind the motor back to the set position before plugging in it may have worked. If you want accurate brake response...use VAG COM

 

Wouldn't you be able to release the handbrake and rasie the vehicle but stop it with blocks?

 

Worked for me as well. Rather than use the car battery power, I used a power supply for an external computer hard drive. All you need is one that has a 12VDC output (+/- 1v will work). This is a nice option as it is highly mobile and zero worries about shorting the wires together.

 

Thanks holdendaniels. Just changed my rear pads on my 2011 A5 following these instructions and it did what it said on the tin. I thought I was going to have to pay someone else to do it but it's real easy following these instuctions.
Great post great forum.??