So I've been having E-Brake problems lately... Long story long, here it goes.

Our house has a big hill for a driveway. Sometimes I park outside because I'm too lazy to pull in but ANYWAYS... (Never at overnight)

Couple weeks ago I parked outside with my brother in the car. I didn't leave the car in-gear and I just used the e-brake to the maximum level. I called my brother in the house real fast and when I got back out I noticed my car was on the bottom of my driveway. WTH? I asked my bro if he touched the e-brake and he said he didn't. The e-brake was at it's max position when I went back to the car. It was literally a few feet away from the street and it scared me. I ignored it and even though I told my bro that I believed him, I shrugged it off thinking that he probably was messing around.

So today I park my car outside after I realize I forgot something. Car not in gear and e-brake all the way up. Low and behold, when I got back in my car and started putting my seatbelt back on, my car was slipping down the driveway with ME IN IT!. Yes the e-brake was all the way up to the plastic barrier and I actually had to start the car and hit the brake to stop myself from slowly rolling away. (Brake is engaged, but not enough to stop me completely)

I still have warranty (thank god) but is this common for cars that use e-brake when parked alot? I never leave the car in gear because I'm so confident in the e-brake (I ALWAYS USE IT WHEN PARKED, habit of driving automatic all my life.) that I never feel that I need to leave the car in gear. Plus it feels weird to me when I do leave it in gear.

Anyone else have this problem?

Note- I've only driven the car about 1K miles. (14.5k right now I think)

 

yeaaa i had the problem too. my S rolled down hill and crashed. but couple months later some lady crashed into me on the same spot in the parking lot so i got all my parts replaced for free!
i think my e brake is weak too so i put it all the way up to max. but i still don put it in a gear tho i think it'll be fine if ur careful enough. and turn ur wheels against the curb and stuff

 

You should always leave your car in gear when parked. You can't always trust your ebrake (as you've seen).

Turning your wheels into the curb doesn't help in a driveway for obvious reasons.

Craig

 

When your brake pads wear out, your ebrake loses grip, and ebrake grip isn't the greatest anyway. Best thing a garage could do is reset your brake cable while the pads are olmost completely gone, then when you get new pads, the ebrake will not go completely up. Always leave your car in gear on a hill.

 

I always park my S with both e-brake (handbrake) and first gear on, or reverse if the other way around!

 

get in the habit of parking it in gear

 

many many posts on this subject - after a drive the rotors are hot - you set the ebrake and the rotors will cool and the pads will release a bit of grib

same thing happened to a good friend in New England - set his e-brake and his car rolled down hill and hit another car - cops came and he showed them the the car was locked and the e-brake was fully engaged

 

Our car has disc rear brakes. That means that our emergency brake uses the existing disc brake for braking. Disc brakes don't make good emergency brakes.

With drum brakes, if you double the force on the brake pedal, you get four times the force on the brake pads. This multiple effect makes for a great parking brake. That is why many cars have front disc brakes and rear drums. Disc brakes have a linear relationship: twice the pressure gives you twice the force.

Add to this the thermal expansion of break components. As the brakes cool down, less force is on the discs.

You should never, ever trust just the emergency brake. The advice that everyone else has given is great. Personally, I don't even use the emergency brake on my car when parked on level ground.

Many high-end cars get around this problem by installing mini-drum brakes along with the rear disc brakes. The mini-drum is used exclusively as a parking brake, but the car has rear disc driving brakes for better handling (less prone to locking up).

 

SOunds like you need the brakes adjusted or that hill is really really steep. Either way put it in gear. This isn't going to be covered under waranty because its a maintance issue not a failure. Take it to a mechanic and have him adjust it, shouldn't take long at all maybe $50 or less if you take it to Honda they will rape ytou on the price, unless they are nice enough to just do it because its easy. Which if you get all your oil changes / scheduled maintance done there they might do it any way for free. Give them a call and see if you have that type of relationship with them, as for me I never have honda do the maintance. They wanted $700 for 30k service I had the 30k service AND new pads/rotors turned AND syntetic oil change for $400 from a mechanic that restores cars for a living and he wasn't giving me anything other than his normal price.

 

More preaching: When parking on a hill, use ebrake and leave in 1st or reverse and execute the standard "hill park technique" with the front wheels turned so the tire rests against (or almost against) the curb.

It's possible that your ebrake cable is now streteched. This can be adjusted as long as it has not stretched beyond its service limit. People who are unaccustomed to using an ebrake usually yank on them as hard as they can right from when the car is new. This only accelerates the cable stretching. Get into the habbit of pulling the ebrake only to the point where it stops the car from rolling and give it one or two more clicks. In conjunction with leaving it in gear, this should help the ebrake function without issue for years. I use mine each and every time I park. 4.5 years and 35K miles later, the ebrake works fine and not much different than when new.
The ebrake (and the brakes in general) is self adjusting, so wear on them will not cause you to have to pull further and further. If this were not true, you would see this in the brake pedal and notice that the pedal is going further down to the floor as the brakes wear over time and mileage. The cable, however, is not the same.