and the moral of the story is ?

[theclash]

had a seized o/s front caliper after spotting the dust cover had perished while putting new discs and pads on. decided to strip the caliper instead of buying a new one cause im a skin flint  garage near me kindly blew the piston out of the caliper with an air line imposible to get out otherwise.  i ordered a seal repair kit from vw £12 and after finally getting the piston out it became clear it was pitted and no good. managed to buy a new piston £17 put it all together(what a hassle)only to realise i hadnt put the dust cover on took me ages to get it back out as the local garage was shut but after about an hour of carefull brute force i did. put it all back together again back on the car and blead it, no leaks and good pedal 
car was of the road for 2days various running round for parts and friday saturday wasted covered in cuts bruises and oil............moral of the story is BUY A NEW ONE 

[AudiA8Quattro]

You can remove the piston simply with a foot pump.
Rebuilding calipers is fun 

[theclash]

couldnt do it with my foot pump not now anyway that ended up in bits too

[X4MGS]

 Think front calipers are NLA just like the rears....

I bought new rear carriers but couldn't get new calipers!!

[theclash]

think gsf do repo ones about 50 odd quid

[X4MGS]

YUK.... GSF

[rubjonny]

239mm calipers are found on tons of newer vags, even my gf 2000 reg seat ibiza has em! just need to fit the biza flexi hoses as iirc it uses banjo fittings not screw in