Electronic Parking Brakes- Long Term Reliability?

[PimTac]

Or the manual pull out handle on the bottom left of the dashboard.

This is just another wailing and gnashing of teeth moment much like when the manual choke went away or electric windows took over the hand cranked version.

I was around when the high beam selector went from the floorboard to the steering column. Oh the humanity!

 

[supton]

Personally I don't think very highly of parking brakes. Ones I have had either did very little, or would be too apt to lock up under hard braking. Usually they work rear wheels and those just aren't going to bring a car to a stop in an emergency stop in a short distance. I don't practice modulating the hand (or foot) brake, so I have to believe that I'd default to full on.

IMO, if I step on the brake and take a failure, I'm just not going to be able to 1) remember to go for the parking/emergency brake 2) figure out how to properly modulate to prevent lockup 3) stop in time. I figure, if I had been needing to brake and suddenly have (say) 10% of what I used to have, between the 90% loss of braking and the reaction time to the change in situation, I will simply have an accident.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted by LoneRanger
.... Actually I guess it could corrode into the unactivated position. Anyhow, what about general relaibility of these relatively new complications of a previously simple system? ...


The electronic parking brake in our '04 Jaguar ( bought new ) has functioned perfectly over the entire lifetime of the vehicle.

The vehicle is often unused for many months at a time, sometimes up to a year. Corrosion into the activated position ( or unactivated position ) has never occurred.

Operationally, it is a nice feature: pull up to a drive through, activate the e brake, vehicle stays in place, touch accelerator and drive off normally, e brake automatically releases.

I hope this actual firsthand, long term, experience addresses your concerns.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted by PimTac
Or the manual pull out handle on the bottom left of the dashboard.



I almost wrecked a Tacoma at a dealer with that. Wasn't sure what that lever was. Someone parked it on a hill, in neutral with just the parking brake on. I wanted to see what the lever was and released it. The truck rolled a few feet before I figured out what was happening.