Handbrake and front brakes - linked to cause issues?

[everson38]

Hey guys,

My little sister has a Seat Ibiza 1.2 TSI 62 plate.
Bit of a back story so please bare with, but I'm trying to find out if a bitter garage may have caused issues.

So last year my sister car was stuck (lives away due to uni), she was trying to set off but it wouldn't move, got out a mechanic and managed to release and turns outs handbrake cables needed replacing. (Side note / remember: I replaced front brakes and fluid about 5 months prior and they were ridiculously responsive, the slightest touch and it would stop, even the the.mechanic said how responsive they were).

He changed the cables bit then called up with a few.more.problems but did seem abit arsey when I said to simply just do the cables and.other issues will be done later. Upon getting the car back the hand brake had.alot.of.travel and the front brakes last their sharpness, they still worked
But.it was day and night. I.put this down to needing bleeding again, so I rebled them and tightened the handbrake cable. The cable was now better but the brakes still not what they were at all. A few.months later I noticed that the hand brake had alot of travel again.

So I want to know is there some reason I amissing why the brakes aren't back on point / why the hand brake cable keeps lossening up. Is it a VW thing that they work together . Becuase my sister mentioned straightaway the brakes didn't feel the same after getting the car back from him.after the arsey phone call and I noticed it also?

Thanks in advance.

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[300bhpdaily]

Are the problems he told you about brake related? Changing the hand brake cables has nothing todo with the brake fluid or front calipers. Neither of those would have been touched by him. Now that you’ve bleed the brakes and tightened up the hand brake cables it could be something you’ve done not the mechanic. I would check the car yourself and start from the beginning with the cables and move on from there...

 

[RUM4MO]

I'd think that the reduced effectiveness of the brakes could be down to your sister not being hard on them and salty water in winter time has ended up with them being slightly glazed.

Handbrake cables on Polos and Ibiza, I've never ever had any problems with them both on cars with rear discs or rear drums, which type of rear brakes does that car have.

My wife's previous 2002 Polo with rear disc brakes was owned from new until 13 years old and 105K miles old, older daughter's late 2009 Ibiza with rear drum brakes was owned from new until August 2019 and 55K miles, wife's current 2015 Polo with rear discs and now on 35K miles and none of them have had hand brake cable issues. On the cars with rear drums, many people start tightening up the cable to get the hand brake to work when in fact they should leave it as set at factory and sort out why the rear brakes are giving trouble and usually that is due to seizing of the handbrake lever arm and general lack of routine maintenance.

 

[everson38]

I'd think that the reduced effectiveness of the brakes could be down to your sister not being hard on them and salty water in winter time has ended up with them being slightly glazed.

Handbrake cables on Polos and Ibiza, I've never ever had any problems with them both on cars with rear discs or rear drums, which type of rear brakes does that car have.

My wife's previous 2002 Polo with rear disc brakes was owned from new until 13 years old and 105K miles old, older daughter's late 2009 Ibiza with rear drum brakes was owned from new until August 2019 and 55K miles, wife's current 2015 Polo with rear discs and now on 35K miles and none of them have had hand brake cable issues. On the cars with rear drums, many people start tightening up the cable to get the hand brake to work when in fact they should leave it as set at factory and sort out why the rear brakes are giving trouble and usually that is due to seizing of the handbrake lever arm and general lack of routine maintenance.

Hey Rum, thanks for input,

The car has rear drum brakes. I just had a look at the invoice and she paid £275 for for new handbrake cables. He also advised that she needed new rear brakes, now inspected these after the work was done and the meat of the pad was fine, nice and thick as what you would expect and unless there is something else to stay rear brakes are bad apart from falling off and having some.glazing. there were no leaks in there, so I was unsure where he got this from?

In regards to front brakes, yes maybe they are glazed, but the difference is day and night and I've don't quite few brake jobs and never had it react this way. I'm hoping a bleed with my new pressure bleeder may rectify the problem.

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[RUM4MO]

Only other thing to say or add is, if the rear shoes handbrake levers have been seizing up over time and no maintenance has ever been done on these rear brakes, then to try to keep the car stationary when these levers were seizing up, would have meant putting a lot more load into these handbrake cables than normal and maybe caused them to wear out at the critical rear wheels end of the cables - and so that mechanic free'd off the handbrake levers and replaced the cables, adding in that these rear brakes needed more doing to them to stop this happening again soon.

If that is the case, then maybe you should try to buy a complete kit of assembled shoes and springs along with hold down springs and glide pads - it seems like glide pads are never included in kits but you can buy them from any VW Group parts department.