Re: Whining brakes? (c-dev)
Interesting. We've had our '01 RX300 for about a year, and this just started to happen to it in the past 2 weeks. Although it's not as loud as you've described, it is an annoyance to have squeaking brakes on a new vehicle. It happens only during the first few minutes of driving. After the pads/calipers warm up, the noise is gone.
The usual cause of this sound isn't metal-on-metal like most dealers will describe it. It's a vibration (cyclical) on the pad itself in the caliper. Most of the time the noise goes away after driving a few minutes because as the pads and calipers heat up, they expand. When they expand, there's no room for the pads to vibrate. If they still squeak after warming up, a visit to the dealer may be necessary to find out what's going on.
There are a few "solutions" (not necessarily pertaining to the Passat in particular):
1. Remove the pads, clean the dust off (both pads and calipers), and reinstall
2. Install "shims" that go behind the pads
3. Some auto stores sell some "gunk" that acts like an epoxy/buffer between the pad and the caliper. Sorry, I don't remember the name of it, but it was made to eliminate squeaking brakes.
I had a '98 Volvo S70 T5 that had sqeaky brakes. I tried #1. It worked for about a week. Then #2 didn't work because no one made shims for that model. #3 did work. Unfortunately, the gunk I bought was bright orange, and could be seen through the 5 spoke wheels.
Hopefully one of these will work.
-Craig