i've done something similar but never with one of my cars.

years ago i was helping a friend clean up some pruned evergreen branches at his house. he was a heavy equipment dealer and we were using a Case W30 front end loader to carry all the pruned branches. he had a circle drive that went up an extremely steep hill for about 500 yards to the house. we were halfway up the hill and parked the loader to pick up our next batch. after we got it loaded one of our other friends pulled into the driveway to shoot the shit and after about three minutes of talking he looks up, his eyes get big and he proclaims rather nonchelantly "loader's rollin!"

we look up just in time to see 20 tons of Case W30 loader starting to pick up speed heading down the drive. i'd say it reached a speed of approx 10-15mph just before it was stopped by one of the evergreens! turns out the brakes on the loader were suspect but no one made mention of it to us. looking back it was hilarious and only cost us one evergreen tree (and a lot of wood splitting) but damn it could have been very ugly had it found its way to the road or into one of his John Deer 80/90 tractors

 

It doesn't matter. One way is fewer steps, but whatever works for you.

 

I learned this lesson the hard way as well. I lived in Louisiana (no hills taller than 6 inches). I parked at the office upon my return from lunch only to have co-workers tell me about 30min later that my car had rolled all the way across the parking lot.

I ran outside and found out that, sure enough, it had. The parking lot was almost level. It had just enough incline to allow for drainage. It had rolled back a full 2 car lengths and came to rest against another car.

I got in to find that the parking brake was fully engaged and the gearbox was in neutral. This entire event took place after I scorned my father's advice about parking the car in gear by saying that we did not have any hills to warrant such a precaution.

Lesson learned: Although my IQ is considerably higher, my father still knows more than I think I do and the gearbox should be the first line of defense against a runaway car.

 

Put it in gear (1st or R, depending on which direction your car is facing), turn car off, get out.

Maybe, if on a steeper incline, set the ebrake as well. Personally I don't use the ebrake very often, especially after driving the car hard.

 

I always set E-brake out of habit. The house I grew up in was on a VERY steep road. I'd have to park my car on the street so every time I parked the car it was turn wheel in/out, leave in first, set E-brake, take out key. I've never quit that habit in 14 years.

 

I don't advocate leaving the car in nuetral when parked and unattended, but I find it hard to believe that the parking brake was "fully" engaged. Maybe the parking brake lever or handle was pulled all the way up, but if that was the case, it would be out of adjustment.

I always leave my car in gear, and if on an incline, I set the parking brake as well. I used to live at a house years ago (pre S2K days) that had a driveway that was like 25% inclined. The compression of the engine was not enough to hold the car in one place. The parking brake, unless set with FULL force was not enough to hold the car either.

During testing, I got the parking brake (handle pulled up with all my might) to hold the car. Although I got the parking brake to hold the car, it's not a good idea to use it in unison without using the compression of the engine by leaving it in gear.

The parking brake complements the compression of the engine and vise versa, the compression of the engine compliments the parking brake. Leaving my car in gear and pulling up on the parking brake just enough without stretching the heck out of the cable's, or worse, breaking the cable's was more than adaquate to keep my car from rolling down the steep a$$ driveway.

ALWAY'S leave the car in gear. If a cable were to break, you would be screwed.

This car has enough compression to hold it on a slight hill without the parking brake. My driveway is perfectly flat, so I don't use the parking brake. If you go out hot rodding your S2K, the rear brakes can get very hot. When this happens, setting the parking brake can cause unwanted brake pad material to transfer over to the rotor. When this happen's, a localized hot spot could occur on the rotor which will get proggressively worse and worse.

I dun't use my parking brake after a nightly spin in the S2K. I guess I hot rod it every time I drive it

 

It amazes me how many people DON'T use the e-brake AND put the car in 1st or R.