Now, after owning my Golf for coming up 2 years, this is one of the points of failure I have recently encountered. For reference my golf has had full dealership history up to 39,000 miles and the sensor failed around 54,000 miles. Take it how you will, this may not be the lifespan, just bad luck. If you don't like this guide, you can read the original guide I found on the net the most useful for understanding and rectifying the problems by reading the G201 Repair Article on the Briskoda Forums I give all thanks to the original editor of this guide because this is the best one I've read on the net by far and where I based my decision to write this guide in my own words.
Now to summarise for those reading this document, you will need to purchase a brake sensor repair kit. It's best to call the dealership and give them the chassis number or registration plate of your car. The parts tech at VW told me there's 4 types of pump that fit that are fitted to your car and the registration will identify it. For the purpose of this guide the repair kit I used for my car was part number 1K0 698 517 B which was £160.68 from the dealership or £167.06 without the discount applied by dealership for me.
The price to carry out this entire repair was in the region of £200 including the sensor and all the parts required DIY and took around 1.5 hrs total from replacing the sensor to carrying out the draining of the brake fluid. The garage repair time is around 3 hrs, so beware of paying a garage/dealership for this repair. You are looking at the cost of the parts/supplies and the labour time of 3 hrs+ @ maybe £60 per hr. So you'd be looking at a repair bill of maybe £400+ so think carefully which option you choose. If you're a decent spanner monkey and have access to the tools DIY it. If you're not confident or skilled enough, find a friend who is. The last option is go to a garage/dealership and see if they will do it on goodwill.
The item will be under your battery and have all the steel/copper pipes going to it from your brake calipers. It will look like the below picture
If for any reason, you aren't confident in identifying the part for this repair yourself, I've compiled a list of some eBay sellers who will be able to review the information you given them and provide you with the kit you need to carry out the repair on your car.
Or you can use these links to buy the part direct (1K0598617B) - I recommend checking to make sure your part fits as you may have a different variant on your vehicle. I have used neither of these sellers before so would appreciate feedback on them. Their feedback scores seem OK, the only option if you want a brand new pump is spending the money as you can see the prices are vastly different.
Please note - the following links are affiliate links, you don't have to use them, but it is appreciated as it helps me with hosting costs and articles
You can find them via the following links:
The most common fault is that the ABS/ESP light will permanently turn on and not turn off disabling the ESP functionality of the car. You will also not be able to turn off the function by using the button surrounding the ashtray for the ESP. These cars also handle like crap without ESP but I think that's just my opinion. You can double check the sensor has failed by hooking up VCDS/VAGCOM to your OBD port in the car. Going into the ABS Brake individual controller and selecting group 5. The value should be reading a maximum of 4 bar of pressure on the brake pedal when pressed. I concluded my sensor was busted when the sensor was reading 200+ bar of pressure without the pedal being depressed.
If your car is reading as 4 bar maximum, then check out other fault codes on the car. The ABS/ESP light can also light up on Volkswagen cars if there's a problem with the brake/wheel speed sensor, although this normally shows up when you're trying to perform the steering rack calibration and it won't disable the yellow steering wheel light or shut off the ABS light. This normally means there's a fault detected
Pre-requesites required before repairing the G201 sensor failure
When you reconnect the battery, the alarm is most likely going to go off. Be ready to "open" the car with the central locking or put key in ignition this completes the section regarding the repair and replacement of the failed ABS pump for the G201 sensors. The next section will be for the ABS "bleeding"
Before I start with this section, this is just the procedure I did with Steven. There are multiple documentations on how to pre-bleed the ABS pump and the system, so take it what you will. You may want to do it your own way, but I have my theories over the way things were done and that's what I'm sticking to. This procedure is really best left to do as part of a two person job otherwise you will get sick of going in / out car and opening/closing valves.
A lot of documentation on the web refers to the ABS pre-bleed as using 4 litres of brake fluid. I didn't use anywhere near that much, the thing about the ABS pre-bleed is that the procedure is merely meant to refill the ABS pump and push all the air out of the front bleeders and refills the car with new fluid. So I didn't go through the procedure all the time, just enough to cycle the fluid and refill the pump. Your choice how far you go.
I've read multiple sites about the procedure for ABS/Non-ABS cars. I originally thought the procedure was RR, RL, FR, FL (furthest from pump to nearest) but lately I read it was FR, FL, RR, RL (paired lines). I'm not 100% sure on this so do your own research to make sure. The procedure I used was FR, FL, RR, RL
If you drive a petrol and hold your foot on the brake I believe it stays there. On diesels they sink, it's something to do with the way the vacuum system works (either that or your master cylinder is busted) but as long as the car stops when you stamp on the brakes you should be OK
Now, before I finish I mentioned when I cleared the fault codes on the car. I had a G85 steering angle sensor fault which lit up the light on the car. This is because the car doesn't know which way the wheels are aligned. If you don't sort this your tracking will be out and it will eat your tread. Mine actually fixed itself once I started driving around 50 yards or so the light and error code disappeared. So I didn't need to carry out the below procedure. You will most likely find the error disappears once you drive the car a short distance
If you need to calibrate the steering wheel there is a document on the Ross Tech Wiki for G85 Calibration
This is the short part of the calibration procedure the full procedure is documented on the Ross Tech Wiki but basically you logon with the operating group in VAGCOM for steering and check the measuring blocks then adapt them. With the engine still running you carry out the following procedure if required
