JDR76

My owner's manual for my GS certainly directs you to use the parking brake:

LexBob2

We went down via the Ohio route and came back through Kentucky. Ky. seems to be the more scenic route coming from the north. I'll keep New River Gorge in the plan for a future trip. Thanks.

Toys4RJill

Interesting, I have not seen that in mine. I am going to give it a look.

SW17LS

Like JDR said, every owner's manual I've ever had has said to set the parking brake when parking. It's just that most people don't read the manual.

Sulu

I am an engineer also and I agree with what JDR76 said.

Never say never. What we mean when we say that "certain parts that are designed to never fail", it means that it was designed to very likely NOT to fail during the design life of the product (airplanes typically are used for 30 to 40 years). But that does not mean that a part will never fail, before or after the design life of the product -- reliability is expressed as a probability measurement (e.g. likelihood of the part failing in X years is Y%) and you never have 100%.

Just because you have never heard of a parking pawl fail does not mean that it does not fail. If your habit is to buy only new cars, the probability that the pawl on your car will fail is low; the probability will only increase with the age of the car. But if used as intended (with the parking brake as backup), the probability will remain low for the period that you own the car.

Toys4RJill

Fair enough, however you would think that if this parking pawl failed enough there would be a big safety recall or awareness campaign. I have never seen it happen nor have I heard it happen. This article portrays it like it a huge issue when it is not. My whole things is that once it is in the park mode, manufacturers would have to design in such a way where it cannot just snap or slip out while the car is sitting in park.

Toys4RJill

So if Toyota designs the pawl to have a 99% success rate, there is no real need to worry about what this article says. IMO

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i live in FL so parking brake is not really needed. unless i park on someone's steep driveway. then i use it.

mmarshall

There is one exception....and you will find it in some manuals. If you are parked in deep or wet snow on a fairly level surface, and there is reason to believe that snow/slush or water underneath the car could freeze up overnight (say, from a fast temperature drop), that could (?) freeze the parking-brake cable still, and not allow one to release it. Only then should one consider not using the brake.

LexBob2

This article is just another list to me. I've used the parking brake nearly all of the time before it, and will continue to do so.

Aron9000

I use the parking brake ALWAYS on a manual transmission car with the car in 1st. In automatics, only time I use it is on a hill.

I remember years ago renting a big box truck from U-Haul, it was a early/mid 90's GMC or Chevy "TopKick", ie their medium duty truck, interior looked like a late 80's/early 90's Chevy truck, same dash and cab. It was an automatic/gas engine combo(mabye a TBI 454 V8???), I remember the guy saying make sure you always set the park brake, because the transmission is screwed up and it will roll in park(probably a broken parking pawl from people putting it in park on a hill without using the parking brake) I was like okay, that's pretty janky, but the whole truck was pretty janky/beat up and had a bunch of miles on it, and it was the only big truck they had. First thing I did was drive the truck out of their lot and parked it on a hill, did just as he said, set the parking brake while in drive, then put it in park.

Took my foot off the brake, son of a ***** it began to roll down the hill. Took it right back and demanded they refund my credit card. Once they did that I cussed them up and down and sideways, man I've never been more pissed off in my life for them renting me something that was so damn dangerous.

mmarshall

You can probably get away with that on a level or slightly-sloped surface, but I wouldn't push my luck.

Also, on a a manual transmission, if you leave it in gear when you park it, that more or less (but not exactly) acts as a transmission lock, and is a back-up to the parking brake.

dat dude

I'm guilty of one of these with one of my cars, can anyone guess which one ?

mmarshall

Well, let's see.........you live in Ontario, where it gets pretty cold in the winter. Assuming you don't use an electric plug-in block-heater to keep the oil warm, I'd guess over-revving the engine too quickly when it's cold.

Stroock639

unless you're just on some serious next level subtlety and this is sarcasm, i'm going to guess he's talking about not setting the parking brake