I have a 97 A4 2.8 Quattro and I just went on a 700 mile road trip. I am having a mess of brake issues. First off, my ABS has been acting up for a while. This is how it all started: I would start off in first gear and when I shifted into second it felt like someone had there foot half way on the brakes, then it would let up and would be fine. This happened about 5 times this past week. Now for the road trip, about 200 miles into my trip all 4 of my brakes froze up to the point that if I let off the gas and pressed the clutch my car would stop really fast. I made it to a rest area and all 4 of my brakes were smoking and the front ones were on fire. I put the fire out and let them cool a bit, loosened the lines on the master cylinder to relieve the pressure. Got back in the car pumped them a few times then took off. I made it to my destination 100 miles from there without an issues. I pulled the car into my dads garage and we flushed the brake lines and reservoir. There was a little water and ice in the lines but not much. We then filled everything back up and bled all the lines. Everything was going great, just cruising around town for a couple of days, put on another 100 miles and there were no issues. Headed home today and got about 150 miles and the same thing happened. I pulled over, and bled the lines on the master cylinder again to relieve pressure and got about 10 more miles then they started to stick again. Now they will lock up even when I don't use the brakes at all. I relieved the pressure one more time and pulled off the ABS harness to see if that would work and within 2 miles they locked back up again by them selfs. I finally made it the rest of the way but had to stop 10 times or more to relieve the pressure in the lines. I'm not sure what is going on here but any help would be great.

 

For all the brakes to be affected it has to be something that acts on all 4 brakes. ABS?

 

Thats what I was thinking. I disconnected the ABS modual and it did it still. Is there anyway I can test it?

 

I've seen brakes lock up from bad rubber hoses, the inside cracks and creates a ball valve effect. But the entire system. Either ABS or the master. I think you could test the ABS with the vagcom that everyone talks about, but I'm not familiar enough with it to give you the straight scoop on it.

 

yes vag com can scan the abs system for any fault codes.

 

Ok, I just got my new Vag cable yesturday so its a great time to test it out. I will do that tomorrow morning.

 

if you need any help setting up the cable and software jsut holler at me

 

What version should I download?