Safe in "Park"?

Personally, I rarely use the parking brake... not very effective and folks tend to ignore the light and back up with it on..lol

IMHO, the main reason for having a parking brake on an automatic is to not jam the park cawl or whatever when you're parked on a hill.. I generally turn the wheel into the curb if there is one of block a wheel if not..

On level ground, I never use it.. YMWV

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

I might add if brake wears itself out after release than it is likely that the cable in rusted in housing somewhere and causing it to bind and not fully release after it has been applied.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

I use it all the time to keep it freed up. If you don't use it you lose it (to corrosion of the cables). They need to work when you sell or trade the vehicle, or you take a hit for replacement costs.

I have a 1999 chevrolet Tahoe with 93000 miles and have never used the emergency brake. i park on hills,(sanfransisco) and all over the state of california. also have a 1989 fs ford bronco, 200 xj cherokee classic, 1988 xj cherokee and am

72 years old and have had many many cars and trucks. never a problem yet, but it could happen. old john

Hello, wrenden! You wrote on Wed, 22 Aug 2007 06:21:12 -0700:

w> A 98 Blazer with the cheesy parking brake that wears itself out when w> released. I'm tired of replacing the shoes and wondering how w> dependable the tranny is to hold the vehicle on steep hills in "Park"? w> wrenden

With best regards, snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net. E-mail: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net

I'm only 3 years behind you. Anyway I know the cables are not sticking--I looked at the levers at the drums and they are fully against the stop with plenty of slack in the cables. It's just a dumb design fault that allows the PBs to grind away while fully released till they become useless. wrenden

I have had a different experience with my park brake. I have an '04 S10 with

4-wheel disc and have had nothing but problems with the park brake. Mine required frequent adjustment then quit working at all and the dealer installed new shoes under warranty. This was at about 30k miles. I'm sure they suspected that i left the brake on and took a tour...

After the replacement I didn't use it at all except to verify that it worked. Several months later I tried it and it had no holding ability. Again, I never used it. I adjusted them (on the cable) so that it would hold, but weeks later it would not. Still, I never used it.

I've read in several places that this is common in these trucks. I'm not too bothered by it, but I'll never count on the park brake. On steep hills, assuming there is a curb, I'll rest against it then put it in park.