Being a professional mechanic doesn't make for an expert on all things mechanical. There is no substitute for experience.

Unless you are a highly experienced professional mechanic.

No games, what the F are you even saying?

It? the parking brake? it's a brake, not a pawl, it has wear liners, but without friction, those aren't going anywhere, so unless you're ripping e-brake slides... no it's not going to wear out. Drum parking brakes have slack adjusters, the lever and cable system has slack adjuster. The system is entirely designed to accomodate wear, as the brake shoes are a wear item and cables settle in and stretch. Sir, your point?

Parking brakes are use-it-or-lose-it. all linkages except the wires are metal on metal and live in the wheel ends and are prone to rusting in place with lack of use. Using a parking brake will result in the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you say. If you do want it to hang, using it rarely or sparingly is exactly what you want to do.

A parking brake will not break from use, it will break from rust attacking the cables and cable hardware, fasteners and springs, but that will happen on a time scale, not on a use scale. You can use your parking brake and have rust eat it in 15 years, or you can not use it, and still have rust eat it in 15 years. Sir, your point?

A sarcastic implication that parking brakes frequently fail with use. Well, I ripped a cable on an old 4Runner, it was manual and the parking brake was used every day of it's life, but with the age it had, the parking brake system had outlasted the front calipers, which failed in used years before.anything can happen, but realistically, your main service brake will have a failure before the mechanical parking brake.

Hey, you found the quote button!

Not talking about the parking brake, the park pawl. The reason for setting, and settling on the brake before moving the gearshift to park is to avoid galling the park pawl from repeated disengagement under load.

meh, the parking pawl, even if disengaged under load, will outlast the transmission's wear items.

...until it doesn't.

Most cars on the road are automatics by a wide margin, most people do not use the parking brake to save the parking pawl.

If what you speak of was a thing, there would be waiting lines at repair shops to fix that issue.

But in a bizarre twist of fate, if you browse transmission rebuild sets, the parking pawl is one of the components that's not included, as it's expected to outlast even that 2nd set of clutches too. It's not that it can't or doesn't happen, it's that it's such a rare failure that, as I've said before, there are more important things to worry about, like the ratio of colored M&Ms in a bag, or the aerodynamic efficiency of a silica gel packet.

In a bizarre twist of fate, I have personally come across countless automatics with annoyingly sticky, galled park pawls and repaired one that was so bad the owner had to resort to pushing the car to unload it. Granted, all of them have been high-mileage cars but the transmissions were still shifting and holding just fine.


Folks are going to do whatever they wish. There are acceptable practices and there are best practices. YMMV

Countless eh?

Been wrenching 15 years in a place with significant hills, and I've had the displeasure of dealing with a lot of commercial pickups that live their whole lives with a trailer pinned up their asses, we've even got a customer that has nothing but high mileage 20 year old shitboxes hauling asphalt/pressure wash trailers. Everything is always held by the parking pawl here because ununsed on automatics, the parking brake linings literally fall off of the shoes from rust at a truck's 4th year in service, levers jam and cables rust off and drag on the ground.

"Pawl 4 lyfe" lifestyle if you will.

Park is the last thing that works. When everything's falling apart, when two or 3 cylinder are missing, gears slipping, wheels are almost falling off and you can see the road under your feet while driving, Park is the last thing that still works right. Never have I once seen, or heard tale of a sticky park, and that is despite knowing psychopaths who throw it in P before they're stopped and bring it to a violent, ratcheting halt.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying to not use the parking brake on an auto, in fact I advocate for it, but if someone doesn't want to, it's not a worry. The likelyhood that they'll have an issue from not using it is likely less than being struck by lightning. About 2000 people die by lighting strike every year, it happens, but you're better off worrying about something else, like the recipe of for big mac sauce, or the wear life of your broom bristles.

Ok, well, countless only because I can't recall. Maybe a baker's dozen. ...ish
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