UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

I have just had my first repeat of an issue I first noticed on my old 2000 VW Passat 4Motion 2.8V6 back in the winter of 2000/2001, and that is, during certain cold wet winter conditions when a lot of rock salt has been laid down on the road surface, in you have driven for maybe 10 miles without any braking, when you apply the brakes, they do not offer much in the way of retardation - though with continued pedal pressure, they do regain some useful braking effort - not a good feeling to be honest!

Now, my wife's August 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS SEL, does have the larger front brakes, ie 288mm discs and ATE callipers, exactly the same disc size and front callipers that my old 2000 VW Passat 4Motion 2.8V6 that I had issues with back in winter 2000/2001! Now, at that time, I wrote to VW UK and they refused to supply me anything in print other - just a phone call with:- "this is not VW's fault, it is happening all over the car market since the removal of asbestos from friction materials, the normal advice we give is to prepare your brakes for use prior to using them. If you have any more problems contact your VW dealer for help." So, that was my problem, I had not anticipated that an old Skoda Fabia would pull out of a side road into a stream of traffic, so I had not prepared my brakes for use!

Now back in late 2000 or early 2001, when I contacted my VW dealer, after writing to VW UK and receiving a phone call from them, they suggested that I went along to an Audi dealership and buy the later/better pads that Audi were already fitting at factory to stop this happening - I gave that a miss, but I did buy a pair of ATE Power Discs with were grooved, and a new set of Textar pads and also fitted water deflectors that Audi were already fitting to their B5 A4 which is the car my Passat was based on, problem solved as it turned out for ever!

Normally this is only an issue with cars that have trailing callipers, ie callipers fitted behind the front wheel centre line, cars with leading callipers, ie callipers fitted in front of the front wheel centre line benefit from the wheel shielding the callipers from some of this salty water.

Of course some modern cars including Audi A4/S4 have a built in braking function that demands the brake pads frequently "kiss" the discs to keep them dry and ready for use, probably with these 6C Polos, that function needs to be taken care of by the driver, most people will not have experienced this, but when you do, it wakens you up nicely, I can't say why I have not experienced this during the previous two winters, so I guess it only occurs in certain winter conditions.

I too have experienced this, and its like you say, largely down to the fact the face of the disk is getting covered in water/salt from where the roads have been gritted, and on first contact the pads have to clear this before they actually make direct contact with the metal surface

Bit of a pain but one of those things its hard to stop certainly on rear disks.

I've since discovered that once the salt concentration has dropped back down a bit due to heavy continuous rain, this issue has gone and the brakes operate at all times with immediate bite.

This is that car's 3rd winter and the first winter that I have experienced this with this Polo, as I said, it is normally only an issue with front brakes that are mounted behind the front wheel centre line, but I seem to remember that these Polos have their front callipers mounted in front of the front wheel centre line, and so should get better protection from incoming road spray.