VW automatic parking brake. etc

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And a disabled driver with only one arm couldn't use a normal handbrake. Or rather not safely.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Then you need to learn new tricks.

Applying the handbrake with the car moving was a driving test fail when I were a lad.

Wind up on the suspension is quite common with some makes. But the car is only going to move a couple of inches which shouldn't be a problem.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Forgot every car comes with a winch these days...

Wasn't it Land Rover where you could actually break things by using the handbrake in an emergency?

[Capitol]

Yes, have a friend with this problem.

[Brian-Gaff]

Not enough real world testing by the sound of it. Kind of ties in with the so called scandal of the US cars all going into low emission mode when being tested. Its almost like they design their cars to be used by techy nerds. Brian

[Michael Chare]

IIRC that was another problem with this hire car. If you tried to drive it with the door open some alarm would go off. I had to switch to 'ignore all alarms mode'. A warning on the dash board is fine as that does not distract you.

[Michael Chare]

The wing mirrors made it easier to answer the 'What is the car behind you?' question when someone covered the internal mirror!

[Jethro_uk]

Not all handbrakes are handbrakes. The Mercury Marquis I drove in the US had a foot ratchet parking brake. Which disengaged automatically when the brake pedal was pressed (i.e. when you were setting off).

(It pissed my friends off right royally, as it proved my long-held point that the ratchet is *meant* to be used to allow the brake to be pulled (or in this case pushed) as tight as possible. When you pressed it down, there was no way to avoid using the ratchet - click, click, click, click.)

Nice feature (I thought).

[NY]

Aaaaargh. That's one of those noises that really sets my teeth on edge, like the noise someone cleaning their teeth or eating with the mouth open, or the noise of chalk on a blackboard. I was taught to press the button when pulling the handbrake on and then release it at the top and give an extra pull just to click it and make sure it had latched on. Saves wear and tear on the latch - and on your ears if you find the noise annoying like me.

[Scott M]

On a Land Rover you can break things going to the shops ;-)

The traditional LR parking brake is a massive brake drum & shoe arrangement on the rear output flange of the (open diff) transfer box. There's not much travel in the system and it's a pretty binary thing - either released or locked solid.

Pulling it on at

[NY]

It's not the movement that's a problem - it probably feels a lot more than it actually is - it's the fact that there's a very prominent lurch as the car comes to a very sudden halt at the end of the travel. I suppose we'll have to get used to gently releasing the footbrake at lights or when parking on a hill so it moves slowly and with a less sudden stop.

I still don't understand why it's related to the suspension because by the time you've been stopped for a few seconds, the body has finished rocking forwards on the suspension after the wheels have been stopped by the footbrake. It's something which allows some rotation of the wheels after the handbrake is on and the footbrake is then released - as if there's rotational play on the handbrake pads. I'm assuming that for it to happen the handbrake must operate separate pads because if it operated the same pads as the footbrake the problem would never happen.

It always intrigues me what "design features" (what I would call faults) are allowed in cars. If I'd been in charge of signing-off the design of a car that had that behaviour I'd have failed it and said "that behaviour is not acceptable - go back and redesign it". It's like the cars where the rear lights are designed so the indicator and brake lights are right next to each other (maybe even a thin ring of amber surrounding a huge circular brake light - VW Golf, yes I mean you!) such that the indicator cannot be seen by the car behind when the car is braking.

[Bob Eager]

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It depends on suspension design as well as other factors. But it's common in many cars - not a fault.

[NY]

Haha. It's like when I took my test and the examiner was doing the eyesight test "read the number plate of that car over there". I said "Well it's ABC

123 A, but you might want to ask me another one because it's my car so I know the number off by heart". You'd think he'd have checked for that situation. My instructor said the best tip was to memorise the numbers of all the cars parked outside the test centre so you can reel off from memory which ever one he chooses. Ah, those were the days when I had perfect vision; I need glasses for driving (distance is slightly blurred) and for reading (no hope without glasses) now I've reached my 50s.

Do they still use the numberplate check nowadays in the test or are they a bit more rigorous and scientific?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And plenty have been driving for much longer than that.

of course in the days when cars didn't have electrically operated mirrors they may well have had more sensible wheels and tyres that didn't get wrecked by kissing a kerb...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And must just about have got round the M25 by now.

[Jethro_uk]

Or pedal wash pumps ?

FIAT 125 had an ingenious combined washer pump and wiper switch. You pressed the button with your foot and got a combined wash/wipe.

I used one of those units as the footswitch for my Vox AC4 "Tremolo" feature ;)

[Adrian]

Going by the handbrake on my s3 Landy, yep, definitely.

You could do some serious damage to the car or house that gets in your way as you attempt to slow down...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not so. The maximum allowed for a reversing light has always been 21 watts per lamp.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes they are.

As you say - a parking brake. A handbrake is also a parking brake. Foot operated parking brakes were common in the US and some European cars.

Heh heh. Despite having had many bangers in my day, I never came across one with a worn out ratchet mechanism.