VW Passat B6 Uneven Rear Brake Pad Wear

The rear brakes on my 2008 VW Passat were making a terrible metallic grating sound, on initial inspection the pads looked to have a decent amount of material left.

VW Passat B6 Uneven Rear Brake Pad Wear

It was only with the caliper removed and both pads taken out that it was possible to clearly see how different the wear was between the outside and inside pads. The outer had several mm of friction pad left, the inside was worn down to the metal across half of the pad.

I first thought that the caliper had stuck on this side to give such uneven wear to the pads but the other side of the car was identical with different wear levels although not quite as severe. It appears from other posts online that this is a fairly common occurrence with the Passat possibly due to the way the electric handbrake works.

On the plus side these pads had lasted 12 years from new and had covered 76000 miles so I'd definitely got a good life out them!

VW eGolf - Electric Golf First Drive

I was fortunate to get to go for a drive in one of the new VW eGolf fully electric cars. Unlike some previous cars this didn't have any immediate drawbacks compared to the standard Golf hatchback and you wouldn't know it was an electric car unless you were driving it and realised there was no engine noise.

You can see the full review on my YouTube channel

VW Golf TDI Rusted Catalytic Converter Pipe Repair

A common fault on VW Golfs is that the exhaust pipe from the catalyst can corrode and rust leading to it falling apart. One option is to buy a new catalytic converter but with prices quoted starting at £280 I found an alternative at my local exhaust fitters, Maidstone Exhaust Centre, who have done hundreds of these repairs.

The exhaust side of the catalytic converter is rusted through and you can see straight through from side to side.

VW Golf Catalytic converter exhaust pipe rusted through

The old pipe is cut out at the catalytic converter, unbolted from the connector to the exhaust. You can see the cat in the right of the picture and the remaining exhaust clamp to the left at the rear of the car.

VW Golf rusted exhaust pipe cut out from catalytic converter

A new piece of stainless steel pipe is cut and enlarged to fit the hole in the cat. This new section is fitted in and welded onto the cat and clamped back on to the rear exhaust section.

New pipe welded on to corroded catalytic converter on VW Golf

The total cost for the repair was £48 which seems like a bargain to get the car back to running normally and saves the cost of a brand new catalytic converter of hundreds of pounds.

Cheap, Quick & Easy EGR Delete Procedure for VW Golf MK4 TDI

I wanted to quickly test if the EGR was faulty on my VW Golf Mk4 TDI PD130 so looked for an easy way to disable the EGR without needing to remove the unit completely.

Quick & Easy EGR Delete Procedure for VW Golf MK4 TDI

By removing the EGR vacuum hose from the top of the EGR valve and fitting a bolt into the hose to prevent vacuum loss it was possible to stop the EGR working and the whole process to less than a minute to carry out.

As my car is an early PD130 TDI engine it doesn't detect that the EGR is no longer functioning and no check engine light (CEL) is shown. Later TDI models such as the GTI TDI PD150 may work differently as they have later ECU versions.

The video showing the process is on my YouTube Channel here EGR Delete