Parking brake use

[WALLOP]

Having always had cars with a hand brake I have become used to the brakes seizing on overnight when wet so eventually used to leave the hand brake off altogether overnight as I have a level gravel drive and the car could not roll away but could be pushed. Now with the Corolla I have deactivated the automatic E.P.B function as when in park mode the transmission is mechanically locked within the transmission so the front wheels cannot turn and I can activate the parking brake with the switch if required for parking on a slope etc which I assume adds braking to the rear wheels.

My reasoning behind this is that the brakes cannot seize on when the car is left for longer periods on my drive so reducing wear and tear on the discs and brake pads and it should prolong the life and reliability of the E.P.B. due to less constant use. Am I right in thinking that cars with electronic parking brakes will still seize due to rust between the disc and brake shoes if left for longer periods or has Toyota found a fiendish method of curing this issue.

[Hardy888]

As far as I know the electronic part merely electronically puts the pad in contact with the disc like a normal parking brake would hence it would still seize.

[Cyker]

Yup, still vulnerable to seizing as a normal handbrake, mainly if left for long periods or in harsher winters. The EPB has virtually no advantages over a normal handbrake - They're less reliable, more expensive, slower, need power and are heavier. The only advantages are the switch is smaller than a handbrake lever and it can be controlled by the ECU (Which may or may not be an advantage when the robots take over   )

That all said, it still might be an idea to use the EPB more regularly as, if it's rarely used, the EPB mechanism itself can seize up and the motors will fry themselves trying to turn the rust-jammed screws requiring a whole new unit.

If they're used regularly they will stay lubricated and prevent any corrosion from building up.

 

[Hardy888]

I hate EPBs because I had one on my golf that would randomly disengage whenever you lifted your foot of the clutch and it was in neutral. Very scary. Never really trust them after that but alas standard on a lot of cars now 

[Cyker]

Yeah - With a manual car they are especially awful as it's almost impossible to do a clean hill-start with them because they're so slow and are just on/off vs the gradual release you can do with a proper handbrake, but instead of fixing that they just added more complexity with 'hill start assist' which makes you to do the exact thing driving instructors teach you not to do - i.e. using the foot-brake to hold a car on a hill when moving off!!

It's not as bad with automatics, and I do like that they at least finally made it auto-engage with P in newer cars - In older cars it didn't and it was easy to forget so you'd risk damaging the parking pawl if parking on an incline and forgetting to engage it, esp. as it doesn't work unless the car is on, unlike a proper handbrake and there's no way of knowing if it's engaged or not unless the car is on.

[TonyHSD]

You can use your parking brake from time to time or every time and in some conditions you can still have pads stick on the discs but they will free and clean shortly after you start driving. What causes issues with brakes usually is moisture inside the sliding pins and once they get stuck then the problems begins. To prevent that from happening best practice is to use the brakes sometimes harder and slow down more rapidly and get them service every 3-4 years. Rear brake pads on these cars also wearing down faster than front one, something that might be a surprise for many drivers. 👌