brakes rubbish first few times of use...

[tequilan]

the last couple of times ive driven my car the brakes have been absolutely rubbish the first few times ive used them after starting the car.
the pedal feels fine with plenty of resistance, but im not really slowing down much at all lol. if i pump them it gets better fairly quickly, and i know the road conditions are awful atm with all the snow/water/salt ect, but ive never felt anything quite so bad as this in any of my other cars....has anybody else been experiencing this? any ideas?
ps. ive got standard setup which is due for replacement soon....
thanks ben

 

[darkhorse]

It's just down to frozen pads, I had a shock the other day when the same happened to me about 3 miles from my house (I have the Seat Sport AP calipers as well). I realised it was the first time I'd applied the brakes and all was fine after that.
All cars will be the same in these conditions. I suppose the advise to give is the same as when you've driven through deep water and that's to test your brakes gently to give them enough heat to melt/condense all trapped ice/water

 

[tequilan]

cool thanks for that. it is a bit of a shock when it happens lol!

 

[RUM4MO]

I think that you will find that the friction surfaces get a salt glaze on them in winter - happens every year up here. Slightly grooved discs tends to sort the pads - though the discs might end up still needing a frequent scrub down with something abrasive to keep them in top condition - I don't bother touching the discs but as they are Powerdiscs they look after the pads and keep themselves a bit drier - on the B5 Passat that last bit is kind of important to avoid exciting and/or trouser messing situations!

 

[tequilan]

lol well i went out and just kept stomping on the brakes until they performed as they should and have had no further problems, so thanks for ur help

 

[tdi sport]

same thing happened to me yesterday just pulling out from work on to a main road pressed the brakes
and nothing happened trousers were nearly full but its good to no that its just the salt and cold.

 

[AlexGSi2000]

Same happened to me the other day, had a full car aswell, had to hit the brakes quite hard!

 

[krussel]

I had this after not using the car for 4 days due to the snow. Even if i do not use the car over the weekend and it rains come monday morning there is surface rust on the discs

 

[RUM4MO]

I had this after not using the car for 4 days due to the snow. Even if i do not use the car over the weekend and it rains come monday morning there is surface rust on the discs

Surface rust from water and salt etc usually only forces the brakes to make a rubbing noise and probably improve the bite initially - I think, its the salt glaze etc with the low temperatures that causes the loss of braking effort initially. VAG once told me that this phenominum (sp!) is industry wide since the mandate to remove asbestos from friction materials. In an ideal world there is said to be two distinct grades or options for friction materials, those that are classed as normal use, and those classed as "optimised for cold weather use" - that info came from VAG to me.