Driving with the parking brake ON

Yes, it's quite possible.

Nobody can really give you any useful input without pulling the rear wheels and taking a look-see. You're probably fine. You might not be.

--scott

Ive done it before. It isnt good for the system, but it isnt necessarily the kiss of death either.

Sort of like smoking, drinking, and whoring... Some day it will take its toll. Maybe not today.

Check the rear brakes out if you are really worried about it.

Quite probably nothing is damaged. When on an open road, going around

15 mph, with no one in sight, on dry pavement, apply the emerg. brake slightly & see if it is working/stopping. Don't apply hard, as rears will slide on the pavement & lose control easily--just enough, slightly, until you can feel it begin to slow. If that seems to brake, then stop the car, apply emerg. brake fully, and attempt to drive FORWARD. It should hold & not allow car to move(It WILL most likely move if in reverse.). An older gentleman, not an instructor, as they were unheard of then, taught me to drive years ago. One thing he stressed was when parking & using the emerg. brake to set it TIGHT so nobody, esp. I, could accidentally take off with it applied & burn up rear brakes and drums. I'm sure this came from his years as a mechanic and service station manager; nonetheless, good advice, I've found over the years. Taught my wife & 2 daughters the same. Luck, s

All the parking brake does is force the pads against the drum or rotor. The most damage you've done is worn the pads out and possibly loosened the cable adjustment.

Every old wrecks I ever owned before,,, I don't know if the parking breaks worked or not.I never tried them out before. cuhulin

I agree with the old timer, but lately I've noticed, at least on GM cars, that you have no control over how tight the e-brake applies because it has a spring in the mechanism.

Of course, it also has an annoying chime if you do try to drive off with the e-brake applied. And the darned thing hasn't worked since the car was about 6 mos. old anyway.

nate

Is there not a light on the dash to tell you that the brake is on?>

Nate Nagel wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news2.newsguy.com:

Well gosh darn.

I wish my old girlfriend's '79 Trans-Am Turbo 4.9 had that chime. Would have saved a major fight the night I put the parking brake on after driving the car, and then she and her friend went out after that. Can you tell we never got married?.

I'd bet that on most cars that have been in service for a while, the parking brake's duties are largely ceremonial. The original poster's car being quite new, though, it is probably in proper adjustment (or at least was before this incident!).

The other big factor, of course, is how hard it was set. Maybe the car was really laboring to overcome the braking in the rear, and wore down the brake shoes quite a bit. Maybe not.

Anyway, the only way to tell is to look at the parking brake shoes... I think all the 2007 Corollas have rear drums, rather the rear discs found in the bigger, faster, and more expensive items in their product line nowadays, so the parking brake arrangement is doubtless pretty old-school: a way to mechanically set and release the regular rear brake. Any mechanic can quickly and easily remove a brake drum for a look-see.

Cheers,

--Joe

I've never encountered a car yet where the handbrake (British for "emergency brake" or "parking brake"!) has any noticeable effect on slowing down a car that is already moving, even when applied hard and suddenly. How people ever lock the rear wheels to do handbrake turns is a mystery to me. That's even on a car where the handbrake has recently been adjusted during servicing and with good pads. Also, first gear on most manual-transmission cars can easily overcome the handbrake when the car is stationary - the car might be a bit more sluggish but it will move without any problem. A standard test that second-hand garages do to check for clutch slippage is to put the handbrake on and then without your foot on the accelerator lift the clutch gently in second or third gear: if the car moves, the clutch is OK; if it doesn't, the clutch is slipping. With my diesel engined Peugeot, the car will take off in any gear, with no power applied, even up a steep gradient with the handbrake on, despite the handbrake being adjusted properly so it will hold the car from running back.

Handbrakes tend to be used much more with manual transmission because they are the main means of holding the car, given that there's no Park transmission lock. I only put the car in gear if I'm parked on a steep hill, and then always so that the car will lurch *uphill* rather than downhill if I try to start the engine without remembering to press the clutch or taking it out of gear. Lurching down hill (with gravity helping you) into the car parked behind you is embarrassing and can be expensive.