My Lincoln LS had one(2004 m/y-2000-2002 had a conventional lever, while 03-06 used electric). It actually WASN'T silent although that's sort of splitting hairs-if you engaged it with the engine off, you could hear a subtle whir-click sound as it applied.
In 100K miles(150K on the clock) it didn't give me any notable trouble, and that was using it faithfully every time I parked. It would OCCASIONALLY throw a parking brake error if the rear pads were thin, but the error was sporadic and it would go away with a fresh set of pads. The rear brakes themselves were more or less the same as on my current MKZ, which has a conventional hand lever-both brake with the main pads rather than using drum-in-disk.
There were a handful of nice touches about the particular implementation of it that I did like. I've driven a bunch of FoMoCo products with a foot-operated parking brake from that time period and earlier(Town Cars and other panthers, Rangers, F-series trucks, vehicles on E-series chassis, Continentals) that would automatically release the brake when you put the car in drive. My LS would release it any time the transmission was put in a moving position-notably reverse. This is a small touch, but something that would often throw me off on other vehicles when I went to back out of the driveway. Also, I appreciated the fact that all it took was lifting switch and I knew it was on all the way.
On the other hand, had I actually needed to use it to stop the car in the event of a main brake failure-something which I've fortunately never had to do on any vehicle, even though I test it on every vehicle I drive regularly-I missed the fact that I didn't have any in-between control. All said and done, I'd guess it probably stopped the car faster than me holding on to a lever or pushing down on a pedal as hard as I can, but I would appreciate having a bit of control.
So, I guess, all said and done it's kind of a take it or leave it feature for me. I liked having it, but the presence or absence isn't a deal killer for me.
In 100K miles(150K on the clock) it didn't give me any notable trouble, and that was using it faithfully every time I parked. It would OCCASIONALLY throw a parking brake error if the rear pads were thin, but the error was sporadic and it would go away with a fresh set of pads. The rear brakes themselves were more or less the same as on my current MKZ, which has a conventional hand lever-both brake with the main pads rather than using drum-in-disk.
There were a handful of nice touches about the particular implementation of it that I did like. I've driven a bunch of FoMoCo products with a foot-operated parking brake from that time period and earlier(Town Cars and other panthers, Rangers, F-series trucks, vehicles on E-series chassis, Continentals) that would automatically release the brake when you put the car in drive. My LS would release it any time the transmission was put in a moving position-notably reverse. This is a small touch, but something that would often throw me off on other vehicles when I went to back out of the driveway. Also, I appreciated the fact that all it took was lifting switch and I knew it was on all the way.
On the other hand, had I actually needed to use it to stop the car in the event of a main brake failure-something which I've fortunately never had to do on any vehicle, even though I test it on every vehicle I drive regularly-I missed the fact that I didn't have any in-between control. All said and done, I'd guess it probably stopped the car faster than me holding on to a lever or pushing down on a pedal as hard as I can, but I would appreciate having a bit of control.
So, I guess, all said and done it's kind of a take it or leave it feature for me. I liked having it, but the presence or absence isn't a deal killer for me.
