Parking/emergency brake not engaging

I was in Austin yesterday and had to park at on an incline. When I pressed on the parking brake it clicked on but the truck rolled and wouldn’t stop.

Has anyone had any issues with their parking brake not engaging? Also, is there a fix?

I looked it up and someone made a video for a second gen where they took the whole rear rotor off in order to adjust it. Is this my solution or is there an easier fix?

I have a certified 17’ with 27k miles and doubt this will be under warranty.

 

Why wouldn't it be under warranty? 3 year 36k miles...

 

I thought that only applies to new vehicles not certified. I will call and ask though thanks

 

Could be worn out or needs adjusted. The parking brake uses pads on the inside of the rotor?
https://youtu.be/p19-geSIkq4

 

Mine is 6 months old and the parking brake sucks when I park on an incline it wanted to rolls backwards. I had them adjust it under warranty and its better.

Update 6/5/19 Parking Brake is sucky again. Going to have to do this myself :-(

 

Had the same problem when my truck was brand new. The tech adjusted it pretty quickly. Worked great but, after 25000 miles I can tell its starting to slip again

 

It’s actuslly pretty easy to adjust the drum yourself. Just takes some time. Did mine and it locks up WAY tighter now.

 

I attached a pdf file for a 2015, should be the same for a '17.

good luck,john

 

Is the process you did the same as the one in the video?

 

Actually used that exact video to do it.

 

Thanks man I might just do this

 

Got it, if the dealership doesn’t fix it I will just follow those instructions. Thanks man

 

For some reason my 2015 caliber does not have a shoe/star wheel adjusting hole or plug in it. I went to two different auto parts stores and looked at several calibers and none of them had any hole where I need it. Has anyone else ran into this problem? How do you adjust without the hole?

 

Speaking of parking brakes I found my parking brake line was rubbing on my leaf springs and it had a decent groove warn into it so everyone might want to check theres I fixed mine by moving bracket and adding plastic tubing
Long shot but could be your issue?

 

Tahoe it's all in the disk. The disk has a little drum brake in the hub.

 

Too prove to this forum I actually use the search feature (on occasion) I'm posting to this older thread .

My new '21 SR5 has 5k miles on it and the e-brake won't hold my truck on my slightly inclined driveway. I'm taking it to the dealer for adjustment this week, but wanted to let you fellow new owners to be on the lookout for this. Could be a safety issue if you live in states with topography.

 

Back when I had my Tacomas, I feel like I had always read that the e-brake auto-adjusted simply by using it. I would have thought they'd have used something similar on the Tundra.

Mine has certainly slipped, but I do find if I just push it down more it will hold.

On another semi-related note, I hate the toggle-style pedal for working the e-brake. It's a stupid system. Ever bumped that pedal getting out of the truck and had the brake come off? I have. I really liked the e-brake on my 2nd gen manual transmission Tacoma, the pull style to the lower right of the steering wheel. But if they're going to use a pedal for the e-brake, they should've used a release latch or something, instead of having it so if you bump the pedal on the way out the e-brake disengages.

 

Mine has sucked since day one. I had the dealership adjust it and they claimed they fixed it (they didn't). I bet all they did was turn the adjuster underneath where the driver's seat is. That really does nothing but tighten the cable. I think the only way to truly fix it is to do the method from the video mentioned earlier. I'll do it one day when I'm super bored.

 

Took the truck to the dealer and was told the e-brake doesn't need to stop the truck on an incline while in neutral and that I should just put it in park....yeah then what the hell is the e-brake for if it can't stop the truck?! Then he told me that they wouldn't be able to adjust it and it's all digital.

I made him write my observation down on the ticket for the technician. Got the truck back today and on the ticket it shows they adjusted the rear brake shoes and parking break cable. Truck now holds full stop on my driveway in neutral.

 

Nice.

I like to apply the e-brake on my vehicles while in neutral, let off the brake until the vehicle settles, then put it in park. That way, especially if I'm on an incline, the weight of the vehicle is principally being held by the brake, not the pawl or whatever is used when the transmission is put in park. I figure that has to be better for the transmission parking pawl, as when I go to leave the truck will shift out of park pretty effortlessly rather than pulling it out of that position against a bunch of pressure.

 

I do the same thing. Much cheaper and easier to replace brakes than a transmission.

 

The parking brake doesn't hold on my 2016 on even a slight incline when I've got the transmission in neutral, so based on guidance from this forum, the other day I jacked up the rear wheels, opened up the left under-dash panel, and adjusted the nuts on the parking brake cable so the wheels locked when the pedal was depressed to 6-9 clicks. Easy enough, but the brake still wouldn't hold the truck, so I took it into a shop yesterday. They said they adjusted the star wheel to expand the brake shoes as much as they could (as this oft-shared video shows), but there was no improvement at all. Now they're claiming that I shouldn't actually expect the parking brake to hold the truck on an incline in neutral. I've never had a vehicle that couldn't do that.

Are they full of it? How many of ya'll have been able to adjust yours to hold solidly on a substantial incline in neutral? How 'bout when you're carrying a heavy payload?

 

I believe they're one of the requirements of the SAE towing capacity calculation. The parking brake has to be able to hold the truck and trailer on a certain grade.

 

Would love to see that documented if anyone knows where to find it.

 

Couldn't get the actual SEA document because it's behind a paywall, but you're right. SAE J2807 standards say the parking brake needs to be able to hold the truck at max towing capacity pointing both up and down on a 12% grade. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be an equivalent standard for max payload.

 

Could you assume 10% of the max towing capacity for a "typical" tongue weight?

 

Yeah, looks like 10-15% is the typical tongue weight. My truck is rated to tow 10,200 lbs, but the max payload is 1,985 (nearly 20%) and I expect to have it loaded to within a few hundred pounds of that limit. Would be nice to feel confident in the brakes' ability to hold on a hill, but think I'm going to plan to carry wheel chocks too...

 

What year is your truck?

 

Another thing to try after adjustment would be to seat the shoes into the drum surface of the rotor. Maybe coast down a long hill and slightly apply Ebrake.

 

2016 (just updated my profile to show that)

Just went through the bedding process for new brakes on my bike. Will keep that in mind once I've gotten the star wheels properly adjusted.