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2009 was probaby the last time anyone actually said they wanted an electronic parking brake (EPB), although some people have got used to them.
VW and Audi have EPBs on most bigger models, and they have recently infected the Golf and A3. All Skodas have proper handbrakes: the new Octavia I've got on order has spece for a mbile phone tray as well as two cupholders beside the handbrake, so I can't imagine what other space needs to be freed up.
I think Ford dropped it from some models as they listened to their customers. BMW 5s and 7s have EPBs I think but the 3-series still has a proper one.
I'm sure others can supply further information.
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Annoyingly, this wonderful extra space that VW have given us in their new MK7 Golf, now fitted with an EPB, has resulted in a larger storage space (similar to my MK6's one with sliding cover),but which has now two fixed cup or bottle holders!
These, stupidly, cannot be removed as I'd prefer, to free up proper storage space for more useful things. And so from my point of view I would now have a space that can only be used for things I rarely ever have in my cars.
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Good to see the flat earth society having their say.
I've got EPB with hill start assist, superb idea all round.
I've just had a hire car on holiday with traditional handbrake and managed to resist the only benefit (hand brake turns) while bemoaning the many shortcomings of such antiquated technology - hire car also lacked auto wipers and headlights two other great conveniences.
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Toyota Avensis facelifted version late 2008 onwards.
These have an electronic parking brake mounted on the dashboard, the difference is you push the button to apply the parking brake and pull it to release. There is no hill assist but it automatically releases as the clutch is released so you never roll back.
The 2013 Avensis has the facility where the parking brake can be programmed to automatically apply when the engine is turned off.
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Good to see the flat earth society having their say.
I've got EPB with hill start assist, superb idea all round
Hope its got ESP or whatever the latest must have acronym is too, it would surely slide straight off the road in the event of rain otherwise.
:-))
gb...fully signed up member of the ''if it aint broke don't fix it'' club.
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gb...fully signed up member of the ''if it aint broke don't fix it'' club.
Me too, new,"improved" versions of things on my computer (Excel, iTunes etc) take a long time to get used to and don't have enough advantage to be worth the effort.
I do appreciate not having to adjust contact breaker points, carburetters etc.these days, I spent hours doing such things in the past, but EPB's seem like a step too far.
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bemoaning the many shortcomings of such antiquated technology - hire car also lacked auto wipers and headlights two other great conveniences.
I know how you feel. Sometimes I drive for miles in pitch black darkness with the windscreen covered in water because the switch is-like-all of six inches off the steering wheel. I mean what a drag! And having to check your mirrors every time you want to manoeuvre! It's like totally too much effort.
Some people need taxi vouchers.
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Traffic Cops has just shown how much of a pain these can be. An Evoque 'dies' in the outside lane of the M62. Within 20 minutes there is a five mile tailback. Police can't push it out of the way because the handbrake won't release. Car is dragged onto a recovery vehicle, no doubt flat spotting four brand new tyres.
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. Car is dragged onto a recovery vehicle, no doubt flat spotting four brand new tyres.
RTFM.
Should be an emergency release mechanism for any car with one in case of failure, especially a LR..;)
For C4 Picasso there is a thing in the tool kit that looks suspiciously like an IUD, this thing is inserted through a rubber bung in the left hand side of the front transmission tunnel and engages with a drive. Winding it up breaks something with a bang, had to do this when delivering brand new, parking brake is now broken but relessed and has to go to the main dealer for repair...brilliant i must get one..:-)
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The officer was too busy RTFM to find out how much of the front of the car needed dismantling to get to the towing eye!
He was fortunate the owner had the manual in the car.
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The officer was too busy RTFM to find out how much of the front of the car needed dismantling to get to the towing eye!
:-))) love it
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But how retro do we go?
hand adjusted timing, no servo brakes, vacuum powered wipers, exterior door handles only, foot switch for high beam (if you've got these new fangled electric light things, carbide all the way for me)....
It may not be welcomed by all, but I like my EPB. One less thing to think about when pulling out (means I can carry on texting whilst safely maintaining control by having a hand on the steering wheel).
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But how retro do we go?
Good question.
We all have different desires in our cars, and we have different life expectances from them too.
I'm a used car buyer generally, prefer something substantial but without too many toys unless Japanese or other far east build, its got to last up to 20 years or maybe more (my 17 year old MB is having a lot of money spent this year to ensure a much longer life) if its something to cherish/enjoy.
Even if its not desirable or beautiful or future classic i don't want or need traction/stability controls cruise climate automated anything (except TC auto gearbox if available) memory seats or such garbage, unless as i said its a Japanese build when all such systems are more likely to last the course.
Others, who get such cars new as company cars want all the toys and get shot when the warranty expires, for those if it all goes wrong its someone elses headache and bill so why not.
The people i don't understand are used car buyers who voluntarily buy the most complicated 'fully loaded' models from makers well known for their customer contempt.
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.........One less thing to think about when pulling out (means I can carry on texting whilst safely maintaining control by having a hand on the steering wheel).
Good lord. I don't bother having hands on the wheel when I am texting. I just jam my legs hard up against the steering wheel, thus leaving both hands free to text quickly.
Incidentally, getting back to EPB and Autohold as fitted to the new Golf and others, I assumed that pulling up on hills, inclines etc or pulling up on the level in traffic jams it was the Autohold and not the EPB that held the car from moving, and this was accomplished by maintaining pressure in the brakelinest - the EPB was just used when parking up.
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But how retro do we go?
hand adjusted timing, no servo brakes, vacuum powered wipers, exterior door handles only, foot switch for high beam (if you've got these new fangled electric light things, carbide all the way for me)....
There were compelling reasons to replace these devices-they did not function very well. The conventional car controls do work well. The worrying aspect is that some drivers are too lazy to operate their vehicles but still want a steering wheel to play with. Driving is a repetitive activity that requires constant vigilence.
The simple act of deciding to switch the windscreen wipers on reminds you that that the road surface is wet and that traction will be reduced. Manual headlight operation forces the operator to at least consider light levels. Once you automate everything, it is very tempting for the driver to become a steering wheel attendent in a well insulated bubble.
And if anyone thinks total automation is the way forward just consider the airline industry. Autopilot has been capable of taking off, flying to a destination and landing the plane without any intervention from the pilot for decades. Yet every commercial plane still carries two expensive pilots. Now consider how much more choreographed the flight path of commercial air traffic is compared to vehicles on roads...
Slobs should buy a contract with a taxi firm, rather than having their indolence indulged with gadgets.
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The electric parking brake is one less distraction when pulling away/hill starts. I doubt that hill starts will ever become a reflex, so that every decision will involve use of capacity, little touches like self cancelling indicators negate the need to primarily consider them. Conventional controls may work well, but they can be improved or removed, take e mail, it has dented the snail mail hold significantly and is undoubtedly an improvement, not that snail mail did not work, just that e mail does it better. Gadgets are fun for some, if you can't afford to maintain them then that's another matter.
I think that your faith in fellow road users associating windscreen wipers with lack of traction is misplaced, and how many drivers who have started a journey in the dark and progressed into broad daylight do you see, still with headlights blazing even when there's an off switch available (or worse driving around built up areas in the dark oblivious to the gloom owing to street lamps lighting the way), very little consideration for light levels there, or driving down the motorway for several miles watching the right turn signal of someone who joined the road minutes ago, despite the incessant tick, tick, tick . ABS, TC, EBD et al are there to make bad drivers less of a danger by limiting their scope to screw up.
I suspect that the two pilots carried on airlines has more to do with emergency situations (eg Hudson River) and customer confidence, I know I felt quite vulnerable when I first sat where I thought the driver should be on the DLR.
I suspect that there will never be a concensus on this, however, we are a gadget hungry society and it can lead us up some very strange paths (angry birds used to be what was left in cooking lunch on a Sunday when we went down the pub, now it's a game).
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Auris Hybrid offers both an electronic park mode with HSA, as well as a mechanical handbrake
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The trouble is that when we all start discussing automation or what we consider now necessary in our cars today, we start making rather silly observations.
When I bought the first of my Four Austin Healey Sprites, starting in 1959, I had to specify a heater as an optional extra and a windscreen washer was some simple device I had to buy from the local motoring shop and consisted of a dashboard mounted pump action button squirting water from a plastic reservoir mounted on the bulkhead somwhere and may have held about a pint of water. We have come a long way since then and expect things to more advanced than that - but we've gone too far in certain respects.
However, I wouldn't buy or want a car that didn't have air conditioning. As I have aged I have become much less tolerant to heat and humidity and wouldn't go anywhere in a car nowadays that amounted to little more than a very hot metal box fitted with glass (and more of the latter).
But enough is enough when it comes to silly things such as the subject of this thread. I'm sure that these devices are fitted not for our benefit but for those of the manufacturers and extra space on the centre console simply won't go down with me.
I am now used to auto- wipers, auto headlights and auto-dimming rear view mirrors but could easily get used to not having them after a very short while. I frequently turn off my auto lights as they keep on flashing on and off under certain conditions of sudden shade, overhead trees etc. which possibly could be misconstrued by oncoming vehicles. Similarly, on a late Summer's evening, the headlights will come on unnecessarily when there is plenty of daylight available.
I could go on about the auto wipers. Very useful for about 75% of the time but I would rather have fixed interval ones back, I think, as at least you know when the next wipe of the screen will be and I won't have to manually intervene because those darned auto wipers don't think fit to clear the screen because the spots of rain are not in the right place on the sensor.
Edited by oldgit on 10/09/2013 at 16:39
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There are two types of EPB, one where a motor pulls on what is effectively a conventional cable-operated brake (e.g. LR Discovery) and the other is effectively cordless drill-like motors in the rear calipers that wind the calipers on and off the disc (such as VAG)
I only have experience of the latter and would never go back to an old stick between the seats that you pull up on a ratchet any more than I would squeaze a bulb for the horn or yearn for a choke to 'finely' control my start and warmup mixture.
If it failed to release, I would call green flag to undo it with a hex socket or do it myself if at home.
If it failed to apply, just use park or gear and park against something, same as a handbrake.
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....................If it failed to apply, just use park or gear and park against something, same as a handbrake.
A rather cavalier attitude, if that's the right word. Anyway the problems and costs arise when these super new gizmos need maintenance. I would think you could not replace your own unit at home as it needs a 'computer' to set the clamping action up again, I believe and therefore your expensive main dealer is your only recourse.
Their probably fine if the car is company owned, leased etc. or you only keep you car a few years but 10 year down the line, well........................heap big trouble
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I would think you could not replace your own unit at home as it needs a 'computer' to set the clamping action up again, I believe and therefore your expensive main dealer is your only recourse.
Sounds like the old wheeze of floggng gas BBQs. The appliances are sold at a loss. The profit is made on selling canisters of propane at a huge margin.
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....................If it failed to apply, just use park or gear and park against something, same as a handbrake.
A rather cavalier attitude, if that's the right word. Anyway the problems and costs arise when these super new gizmos need maintenance. I would think you could not replace your own unit at home as it needs a 'computer' to set the clamping action up again, I believe and therefore your expensive main dealer is your only recourse.
Their probably fine if the car is company owned, leased etc. or you only keep you car a few years but 10 year down the line, well........................heap big trouble
EPB failingis less of a problem than with a stick-brake, as a stick brake will fail and change state from on to off (as could be seen by numerous stories on BBC's Watchdog and various recalls). At least an EPB will fail and remain on or off.
They also offer built-in 'virtual' wear indicators using the hall sensors that count the number of shaft rotations and report back to the instuments, they also reapply on hot discs as they cool so no more rolling away like Vauxhalls' and Renaults' with stick-brakes.
EPB can also be applied as emergency brake as it is programmed to activate ABS up to a certain rate of deceleration, if a passenger was to apply a stick brake due to the driver having a health problem, the rear wheels would probably lock up and the car spin.
The EPB pads can be changed on VAG cars with the use of a laptop and £8 ebay cable, or even a hand-held module for about £30. You can even use mobile phones' and tablets' web browser now with a wireless web-server module, but that's expensive until the Chinese can copy it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDv0TgeN8YU
Edited by Hamsafar on 12/09/2013 at 19:20
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Vauxhalls and Renaults with 'stick brakes' would not roll away if their drivers did what they are supposed to do when parking on a gradient, i.e. leave them in the appropriate gear and turn the front wheels to the kerb; standard recommendation for years as a 'failsafe' practice.
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