People still disagree on how best to use the parking brake on hills – Jalopnik

When parking a car on a slope, we all know to use the parking brake (or handbrake, emergency brake, e-brake, or whatever you want to call it). It is also good to turn the wheels towards the curb to prevent it from rolling away, in case any parking system fails on it. It’s also a good idea to use your e-brake on a flat surface, as keeping the cables and levers moving will prevent them from binding, which can also happen if you leave the brake on for too long.

Car enthusiasts know that we use the parking brake to take pressure off the parking pawl of an automatic transmission or the clutch and innards of a manual transmission. If you park on a hill without using the parking brake, the car will roll a few inches, which means the weight of the car is resting on small transmission parts and not on the parts that are actually designed to hold the car in place.

So, what is the correct sequence of actions to ensure that the car is parked without pressure on the transmission? There is an obvious wrong way, which is to put the car in park or gear, let it roll, and then apply the parking brake. At that point, the e-brake is simply there to catch the car when the internal parts of the transmission snap. But what are the other methods? (To keep this discussion simple, let’s say we use “park” for automatic transmission cars and put the car “in gear” for manual transmission cars.)

It seems a bit exaggerated, but let’s see how it compares to other techniques. In a video of I will help you onlineThe first method taught is to press the brake pedal while driving, engage the e-brake, shift to neutral, release the foot pedal from the brake pedal, press the pedal again, shift to park, then turn off the car and take the foot off the pedal for good. Man, that sounds just as complicated.

But that second video has a different method right after the first: pull the handbrake while driving and then shift right to park – that’s what we said at the beginning of this section. But then another video on this topic comes out Around the house also recommends shifting to neutral first and then parking. What gives?

Speaking of Technology explainedthe channel also has video about parking brakes. In it, Jason Fenske (the channel’s owner) discusses whether you should press the button on the handbrake before pulling it up. Apparently viewers complained that when he engaged the handbrake, he caused unnecessary wear and tear by not pressing the button. But Fenske (who, well, is a mechanical engineer) knows what he’s doing, and he explains that there’s no harm in just pulling the parking brake all the way up in all its rattling glory. After all, it is the same basic mechanism as socket wrenches, and they have no problem with such noises.

What’s really important here is making sure your e-brake holds the car steady on a hill, rather than all the weight resting on the pawl. If you want to shift to neutral first, that’s fine, but there’s no real reason to do so, and some owner’s manuals say you have to shift right to park anyway. Just don’t forget to disengage your parking brake before you drive away.