Driving with my hand brake on!!

helen_dui

I am having a bit of a panic this morning with my car. Basically, on my way to work this morning just out of my house I stopped at some traffic lights and applied my hand brake.

Well, I must have forgotten to take it back off beacuse after getting onto the motorway and driving for 15 miles or so, when I came back off at a slip road i noticed my foot brake didn't feel like it was quite as sensitive when i put my foot on it - not a big difference but noticable.

This had me a bit concerned, but i carried on to work. Once I pulle dup in the car park and went to pull up my hand brake I realised what I had done - panic!!

When i got out there was an awful smell which I imagine was the brakes. I drove about 20 miles with the hand brake on and so now I'm really worried I have knackered my car.

Thing is - I have to drive form Manchester all the way to Southampton on Friday and I am concerned about that now. OF course I will have them looked at if they still feel weird when they have coled down, but what do you think my chances are of getting away with them being okay once the temperature is back to normal?

I'm not good with cars at all so any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

movieman

If you've been doing 70 with the brakes on you'll certainly have worn down the pads some and could have overheated the disks. If you've got a long drive to do on Friday I guess the safest thing would be to get a local garage to check them out.

That said, a friend did it once with a rental car, though only for about ten miles, and it didn't seem to cause any problems for the week or so he was driving it. He smelt the burning from inside the car and realised what he'd done.

Jorgan_2

As movieman says you will have worn the brake pads & possibly caused some warping to the brake discs, caused by overheating. Many of the fast fit places carry out free brakes checks so if concerned, get a check done. Just don't tell them why you think there could be a problem.

You may want to check the handbrake hasn't stuck on, caused by the heat generated. A gentle rocking back & forth in forward & reverse should 'unseize' the handbrake if it is locked on.

black-saturn

My mums always driving around with the handbrake on :rolleyes:

I can't give you any advice other than to ask what is the handbrake for? I thought it was meant to stop the car?

wazza

i am suprised you didnt notice the lack of power or more gas needed to get up to speed. have your back brakes checked.

movieman

I thought it was meant to stop the car?

It's meant to hold the car on an incline: it's nowhere near strong enough to prevent any but the most wimpy cars from accelerating at normal speeds. Most cars can accelerate up an incline much steeper than the handbrake can hold it on.

That said, it should cause a fair amount of drag at 70, so I'd expect a driver to notice that. Maybe by that point the brakes had degraded enough that they couldn't provide much resistance?

Jay-Jay_4

I'd certainly notice if I drove with the handbrake on my current car, however
I used to drive my old car around with the handbrake on all the time The handbrake itself was rubbish and I always left the car in gear when parked. Maybe the OP's handbrake isn't very good either, hence she didn't realise that it was on and therefore.... it shouldn't have done very much damage.

plane_boy2000

movieman wrote:

It's meant to hold the car on an incline: it's nowhere near strong enough to prevent any but the most wimpy cars from accelerating at normal speeds. Most cars can accelerate up an incline much steeper than the handbrake can hold it on.

That said, it should cause a fair amount of drag at 70, so I'd expect a driver to notice that. Maybe by that point the brakes had degraded enough that they couldn't provide much resistance?

If your handbrake is that weak that you can drive around with it applied and not notice then its probably already knackered anyway plus would likely fail the MOT. I had never had a car with a working handbrake that you could pull away in and not notice.

helen_dui

Hi everyone. Thanks for your replies.

Well, all seems to be okay with the car. I left it and the sm,elly red hot brakes to cool down and on the advice of several on this board and my dad and a guy who work with cars then went out a good few hours later to check on it. Smell was gone which was good. Then I drove round the car park with the windows open and heard no nasty noises or vibrations in the brake pedal or anything.

I still took it easy on the way home though and make sure that the darn handbrake was off this time!!

The brake itself now feels totally back to normal so am mega relieved, but I am still going to ask my reliable old dad to check it all over this weekend to make sure nothing is wrong too badly underneath.

I think I have been lucky in the fact that although I did feel a change in the car's performance while driving with the hand brake on, the fact that I am very feeble and girly and so probably only had the brake pulled a shorter way up has got me out of it this time (as when I first noticed I had left the brake on yesterday I did in fact pull it further up by an inch or two when I parked up).

For once my lack of strength has worked in my favour! I dread to think what it would have done if it had been 100% pulled right up - like some of you have said here, I probably would have noticed a lot sooner what I had done or it would have told me that my brakes were already shot.

Anyway, panic over - thanks again for all your replies - much appreciated.

Jay-Jay_4

Glad to hear that your car's ok

When my hubby drives my car I have to use two hands to release the hand brake so I know what you mean about girly feebleness

Jorgan_2

To quote Lee Evans 'handbrake, I thought it was an air freshner cos when I let it go the smell of burning goes away'

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