Grrr.... parking brake... AGAIN

[SwissXC90]

Goddamn Parking Brake bit me again

After noting it was not releasing properly, and rubbing and squealing, as well as not holding properly, I went to the garage for a repair, thinking it won't be too bad surely.

Wrong.

Discs OK (only 4 years and 25000km old), but the parking brake pivot points had rusted up and seized, not releasing the shoes. I expected that, considering the symptoms.

The brake shoes had rubbed on the drums and thus worn the shoes unevenly.
And I'm sure fuel economy was poor as a result.
(As a side note: the drums were shiny and clean from all the rubbing...)

OK, so new brake shoes, that's fine.
And of course new pivots, that's fine too.

Garage reassembled and put the car on the brake tester and tried it... and the parking brake failed.
They were surprised. Me too.
Around 55% imbalance left vs right. Max around 30% allowed.
Right wheel was gripping well.
Left wheel nowhere near as much.
Won't pass our local MOT.

They said no way was that good enough. And that it had to be a stretched brake cable.

They took the two cables out and laid them out side by side, and invited me down, showed me everything, showed me the cable length imbalance.

Sure enough one was longer than the other, resulting in unequal braking forces applied to the rear wheels.

They ordered and fitted two brand new cables.

Parking brake now holds firm, and properly holds the car
1 click - holds car in idle
3 clicks - holds car on my driveway ramp
And the car now rolls better, due to no more dragging brakes.

A million times better than before

And Yes, it cost me stupid money to fix, but then I couldn't fix it myself, and I have MOT coming in 3 months time... so it had to be done


So...
Look after your parking brake
Maintain it yourself if you can
Disassemble and inspect it if your car does not hold on 3 clicks.
Don't overstress your brake by trying to stomp on the pedal and trying to hit 7 clicks when it doesn't hold. You'll just do cable damage, like I did.