Mohamed

It's a good idea for any car/truck to not constantly engage the e-brake after a long drive that may have included lots of braking. The major cause of brake warping is the drum/disc lining geting low spots in it because of heat from the pad/shoe engagement on it. My father drives an accord and he parks it on our incline driveway, so he constantly engages the e-brake. As a result, he warped the rear rotors within a month after I swapped out the pads. I still haven't taken a brake class so I had the dealer do it this time since I had someone last time remove the rotor for me. The dealer told me he grinded it to the bear minimum and next time, I would need new rotors. Rotors are not cheap, especially for Honda's and I know toyota's are not that much different as far as price wise. Just trying to save you all some money for mods. So if your not on an incline and on a straight away, especially true for automatics, try not engage the e-brake after long drives. Auto tranny's have a lock pin that enters in between the gear teeth to prevent the car from rolling and it shouldn't break so as long as you put it in park when the car has come to a complete stop.

(fyi...you can test this by engaging the ebrake and keeping the lock button depressed as you are driving around town and lift the handle hold for a few seconds and then release. If you feel a shaking or jitter, it means you have warped rear drums/disc depending on what setup you have, in a setup like the 2nd Gen runner's e-brake, you can simply be holding on the button and have the handle turned slightly as you hold and release back in).

Beowulf

I had always heard that the brakes are supposed to be auto adjusted by use of the parking brake.

Is this false info?

I also heard this from Gadget:

Once you do use your brakes hard and you come to a stop do not sit at the light with the brake pads clamped against the rotors while they are very hot. Let go of the service brakes and hold the vehicle still with the parking brake. Apearently keeping the brake pads clamped against a hot rotor while stopped will cause some pad material to stick to the rotor and it feels like warped rotors. What I do is keep moving the vehicle up a foot every few seconds so the pads don't sit in one place and the rotors cool more evenly. This does seem to work.

Does this sound correct?

Thanks

Mohamed

Everything you said is absolutely true. A lot of mechanics though find that we like to manually adjust the brake instead of relying on the parking brake auto adjusting.

Your advice or Gadget's advice (whoever came up with it) is also something I practice daily when I at a stop light, let the car roll a little every few seconds so that the pad is not clamped at one spot on the rotor causing a low spot and thus leading to warping. Especially for me because of the so-called Tundra brake warping problems, I am very careful to try and not hold the pad to the rotor so much at any given point.

Fred Anarat

I do agree with the idea of not "hot spotting" the brakes but,,,,,
I wouldn't go so far as to say that you should avoid using the e-brake completely.
Unless you are very diligent about lubing all the cables and linkages of the e-brake system regularly, you may find that that the brake will not disengage (due to rusting of components) after being used inadvertently. Granted this is more frequent in northern climates (especially with the use of salt to clear roads) but if the e-brake seizes completely you're not going anywhere, and if one side seizes, that side will need rebuilding if driven on.

Mohamed

Oh no, I didn't mean don't use it at all, I meant only when necessary, the lubrication is also essential for any moving component of your vehicle, like you said to prevent siezing at the very least.

Beavah

I have never used my emergency brake on any of my cars. I can't count the amount of times that I would be sent to pick up a car or truck that's been sitting somewhere and the emergency brakes are stuck.

I used to drag them down the road with the tires smoking away until the brakes finally let loose.

Even if they don't sit for a long time but you get the right weather conditions you can freeze a cable and have them lock up.

I guess it's a subconscious thing now because I had to deal with such things?

:beaver:

Dave & Cindy

All very true statements, but one should use caution in lubing e-brake cables. The lubricant attracts dirt and therefore can lead to cable freeze in its own way. Use of an e-brake in freezing weather when the chance of moisture around the brake lining is great is usually what freezes the brake on.

Even cooling of the brakes is of utmost importance to prevent rotor warpage.

I am employed as a brake mechanic and see these things all the time. I personally discourage the use of an e-brake because of all the problems I have seen with them. even fires