(a) I read an article about cars giving arguments why to use the emergency brake. The article stated one should engage the emergency brake and then put the car in “Park”. Why would the sequence matter? It is a more natural action for me to put the car in “Park” and then engage the emergency brake.
(b) Also, can a car buff tell me if the emergency brake is really an independent system from the brakes? I don’t think it is. Doesn’t it share the same brake fluid lines, master cylinder, and brake shoes/pads? So, if one were to fail wouldn’t both fail…because it’s really all the same brake system!
a) No, the sequence doesn’t matter for an automatic, since you’re pressing the brake pedal down anyway when you change gears. It might be of some importance for a manual, where you have an engaged clutch at standstill. In that case it might be “safer” to do the emergency brake first, then turn off the engine, then pop the clutch whilst leaving the car in first or reverse.
b) I think an emergency brake uses the same rear brake discs/drums, but it is cable operated and will still function when electrical stuff like power braking etc. has failed for whatever reason. Hence, it will always stop the car provided the brakes themselves are in good order.
a) it matters. If your on a hill, pointing nose down, apply e-brake first to hold car then put auto. tranny into “park” as to not put pressure on the parking pawl. The pawl is a small “tang” that locks up the tranny.
b) there is no electricty involved in stoping a car. Cars with abs stop just fine with no “juice”
For “a”, I assumed the engine was still on, so you would have the foot on the brake anyway. If the engine is off, your answer is right.
For “b”, I think you may be mistaken. ABS has nothing to do with it, that’s an extra that doesn’t matter in this scenario. But if for some reason your power braking fails, you’ll have a hard time stopping the car, so the emergency brake might AID the decelleration.
IF for some reason the normal brake lines fail, I still think the emergency brake will work. Unless the bad guys cut that cable too, of course
Booker’s point was that (except for ABS control) the braking system is not electronic - it hydraulic. An electrical failure will not seriously hamper brake function, however if the engine is not running your power brakes will not have any ‘power’.
Although the emergency/parking brake does share the primary braking components (pads & rotor/drum), it has a separate mechanical actuting system using cables. The most common point of failure on the regular braking system is in the hydraulic actuating system. If you spring a leak the pedal will not work but the emergency brake will.
One of the reasons that only the more expensive and modern cars offer 4-wheel disk brakes is that it’s much simpler to actuate conventional drum brakes with cables; the mechanism is considerably more complicated (and thus expensive) for disk brakes.
As Booker and Coldfire have pointed out, you should apply the parking brake before you release the pedal brake to avoid stressing the parking pawl in the transmission. It’s probably good on general principles to apply the parking brake, put the transmission into park, then release the pedal brake. That way you reduce your chances of inadvertently releasing the pedal brake with the transmission in park and the parking brake unengaged.
Wait a minute, here. The parking brake shares some, but not all, the parts of the regular brakes. On a car that has drum brakes in the rear, the parking brake lever (or pedal) actuates a pair of cables to the rear brakes, where they pull one of the two shoes in each drum against the drum. You should step hard and hold the the regular brake while engaging the parking brake. Why? Because the hydraulics of the regular brake can push much harder than the cable of the parking brake can, then you lock in that pressure wuth the park brake. On a car with 4-wheel disc brakes, the rear discs have a little drum built in just for the cable-driven parking brake. The drum-on-disc looks like a steel hat.
I don’t recommend putting much faith in the strength of “Park” on your transmission. I have seen a slowly rolling car’s driver select Park, and I’ve seen a parked car get nudged by another car. In both cases, the “park” pawl made an ugly noise, but the car moved anyway.
