Electric Parking brakes ...

chrisw

I had an 06 Passat with it fitted. If you press it at high speed it acts as an emergency brake in the event of hydraulic brake failure. It doesn't lock the wheels as I presume the ABS also comes in to play. It does beep loudly though to scare the pants off you.

anotherbaldrick

I tried my electronic parking brake at speed (well 60) and it does work , lift the little lever and you feel the brakes come on, not screech stop, the braking effect is proportional to the amount of lift pressure you apply, release the handle the brakes go off at once. This is on a VW Tiguan

Mankysteve

A handbrake is never going to provide enough stopping power to lock the wheels at high-speed. There only designed for holding a car still.

When you see stunt/rally cars doing handbrake turns there using special set ups that can lock up the wheels.

DUTR

Mankysteve wrote: »

A handbrake is never going to provide enough stopping power to lock the wheels at high-speed. There only designed for holding a car still.

When you see stunt/rally cars doing handbrake turns there using special set ups that can lock up the wheels.

I'm grown up now, but my MK1 Golf could certainly manage handbrake turns

rustyboy21

got the electric parking brake on my current car and hate it.


I either forget to switch it on and have to run after the car after getting out of it, or as what happened a few weeks ago on a hill in Bradford, put it on at lights on a steep hill, went to set off at light changes and it wouldn't disengage. I burnt out a fair bit of the clutch and had a horrible burning smell in the car for ages after. Had to replace the clutch on it a few days later.


Give me an old fashioned hand brake any day ! I now make sure I put the car in gear, as I leave it, just in case I haven't put the brake on !

DUTR

rustyboy21 wrote: »

got the electric parking brake on my current car and hate it.


I either forget to switch it on and have to run after the car after getting out of it, or as what happened a few weeks ago on a hill in Bradford, put it on at lights on a steep hill, went to set off at light changes and it wouldn't disengage. I burnt out a fair bit of the clutch and had a horrible burning smell in the car for ages after. Had to replace the clutch on it a few days later.


Give me an old fashioned hand brake any day ! I now make sure I put the car in gear, as I leave it, just in case I haven't put the brake on !

I never have to touch mine, it has autohold, as long as the seatbelt is on, then it just seems to work seemlessly :cool:

rustyboy21

That's Toyota for you though. Doesn't have auto hold, thought I would do it correct and apply the brake, car in neutral. Lights changed, car put in first, accelerator pressed, clutch slowly off and no movement. Loads of cars behind, just wouldn't move. The smoke screen I left, when it eventually worked was like smog ! Now just ride the clutch at lights on a hill, feels safer and more comforting.


I hate this car ! lol

colino

Any decent car with an epb fitted will have a far superior secondary or emergency braking system over a standard parking brake. They use the rest of the cars braking technology and if for some bizarre failure the pedal doesn't work, the abs pump will supply full service (via abs and/or stability control) to the wheels.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

There seem to be a lot of different ways of implementing electric handbrakes. Some are simply a motor which winds the cable and others are integrated into the braking system. I'd guess that the systems where they have an emergency braking system operated through the ABS also have a separate mechanically operated (via a motor) parking function as you need a system where without any power, you can guarantee that the brake will stay on.

I quite like the Merc compromise on BlueEfficiency, it has a hold function for normal driving operated manually with a double press of the brake pedal, but also with a small hold of up to a second between releasing the brake and pressing the accelerator, but when it comes to parking up, you can give the foot operated parking brake a nice stomp - it's not going anywhere.

Once you have put in stability control which allows the car to automatically apply brakes as it sees fit, putting in hold systems essentially can come for free. Hold systems do not replace parking brakes though.

Stoke

shortchanged wrote: »

Personally I think they are one of the most pointless additions to modern cars. Are people too lazy to pull up a handle these days?
Just some other piece of unnecessary gadgetry that is bound to be expensive to fix when it goes wrong.

£800 on an Audi A4.