Parking brake

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scot

New Member
Joined
Dec 8, 2008
Messages
9
Location
Desborough
Car
CLC 220 CDI Sport
I collected my new CLC on Friday and with regard to the hand / park brake, I was told that it was not necessary to use it with an automatic as leaving it in park was more than adequate, ( somthing to do with the diff )except on steep hills. Any views on this please.
Regards Scot.
 
I was under the impression that when you put it in P , a little ( and i mean little ) clip engages .

Do you want to risk your car rolling off should this fail , or if someone should bump you and snap it ?

Putting the footbrake on is no hardship is it ?
 
The parking pawl is a sizable piece of metal and the gear teeth it engages with are chamfered so it will jump if the load is too great or a shock load is applied.
 
The parking pawl is a sizable piece of metal and the gear teeth it engages with are chamfered so it will jump if the load is too great or a shock load is applied.

I never use it on my driveway but always when parked in a public area due to the worry of the shock load you mention.

Also once when I was in Old Couldon I drove up Caterham hill and ended up having to stop due to roadworks. I put it in park and THEN applied the parking brake, it was bloody hard to get it out of park again as you now have a side load keeping the teeth, dogs, pin etc in place, so parking brake first, then into park on steep hills.

Dave!
 
Because of a knee injury, the same reason that I drive an automatic, I have never used the foot operated parking brake on either of my MLs, present or past, or on my C.

While I bow to the greater knowledge of many forumites (having never even heard of a parking pawl), I have had no problems in 6 years.....
 
Just try using a foot parking brake with a manual gearbox clutch whilst doing a hill start up a 1 in 4 in a queue of traffic such as our local underground car park exit. Great fun, I now tap dance better than Brucie.
 

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