The ESP warning light came on a few weeks ago which an Audi dealer has diagnosed as a faulty brake pressure sensor. To repair it requires a new ABS control unit at a cost of nearly £1500 including tax and fitting. My Haynes manual suggests this is a dealer only repair, but I wonder if this is really true. Does anybody have experience of doing the job?

Hello Clifford,

I think this may be one of VAG's "common problems". Well at least that is what I understood some years ago when we had a similar issue with the 2006 A3 Sportback.

At that time, I approached The Skoda Parts Shop ( up north somewhere and no connection) since this was where we were getting service items at discount. They were able to provide a "part ABS" unit at a not too unreasonable price at that time.

If you need me to, I will try and see if I can find the receipt in the file and give you some more information.

Kind regards,

Gareth.

p.s. Mileage would be interesting.

Thanks Magnet. Any information you can provide will be appreciated, particularly ease of fitting. The car has only done 74000 miles.

Looked back through the file for you Clifford and have the following information for you:-

Skoda Parts Shop (their EBay user name I think) are Rainsworth Skoda at Mansfield, Notts. and the phone number is 01623 623400. Ask for their parts department and you should get Dan, or from memory (not very good!) possibly Jonathan. I have bought quite a few service items off them, and you usually get a reasonable discount.

The "part ABS" unit we had from them for a 2006 A3 1.6 was:- 

Part no. was 1K0698517B and was described as a Repair Kit, and from memory included the already assembled valve portion. The cost back in August 2012 was then £164.98 inc. VAT. I didn't actually fit it, but as I recall, was simply the top half of the easily accessible ABS unit. Wouldn't have thought there was any great problem in doing this, but cleanliness would obviously be of paramount importance. 

Hope this helps. Incidentally the mileage at that time would have been a little over 100K. 

Good luck with it, and it would be useful to know if this VAG part is still available. Could you let us know?

Kind regards,

Gareth.

 

Thanks Gareth. It looks like I am out of luck with Ebay. Not only can I not find your seller, but I can't find an ABS unit for my particular model. New units for other models range from £35, (the seller is clearly a liar,) to £906, so I must decide whether to bite the bullet and pay Audi, or just ignore the warning light.

Hi Cliff

Have you looked on these following website?

http://www.breakeryard.com/

http://www.eurocarparts.com/

Regards

Bradley

Hello Bradley. I am happy to use secondhand parts for non-safety related items like the headrest I bought a few months ago, but for brakes I want new parts.

Hi Clifford

That's totally understandable! Safety first at all times no compromise :)

How about this website

http://www.micksgarage.com/

http://www.bestpartstore.co.uk/audi

Hope this helps, just trying to help as much as I can.

Regards

Bradley

Hello Clifford, 

I'm not sure if I've become rather confused with this, but the way I looked at it was, the price-to -beat was around £1500 at the main delear (OK with fitting),  and so the £165 for the genuine VAG part from Rainsworth Skoda seemed attractive enough not to be bothered with EBay or scrapyards. Not sure whether that avenue us been investigated. 

Kind regards,

Gareth.