Drums or discs?

Only real answer is to strip the rear brakes out and see what the issue is, whatever is squeaking should leave a nice polished finish so easy to spot.

Peter.N., i don't recall 406 parking brakes being especially poor when i used to deliver them, 405's were unforgettably useless though, often when you got out of the car it would follow you back down the transporter so generally you needed a colleague to secure it before releasing the footbrake if the deck you were loading it onto was especially steep.

I'm a fan of the drum inside disc parking brake design, all of our cars have this type, if you service them properly once in while they give no trouble at all, unlike those horrid self adjusting calipers that also serve as a parking brake, not one good word have i for those.

The parking brake shoes never actually see any wear, so whenever i remove the disc/drums always give the shoes friction material and drum friction surface a roughen and clean up.

Not sure how the parking brake shoes adjust on the 406, on our cars its a case of old school stick a screwdriver through the relevant hole in the drum and move the adjusting wheel...usually after you find you've been slackening it off and have to then click it the other way.

What i do then is use the parking brake now and again to bed the shoes in, because they never see any wear as such it's quite possible only a small percentage of the shoes are in contact with the drum at all (maybe this is the 406 problem?), so driving along and every now and again apply the parking brake gently for a time to allow the shoes to fully bed in, then whip the wheels off and readjust and last of all nip the handbrake cable up, i have found this makes a big difference.

It sounds like your present 406 has been adjusted up well..

The other issue with this design, is if you never do as above and let the shoes and drum clean each other up by gentle application whilst moving you get rust forming on the drum itself, which can wear a massive centre groove in the shoe material...i haven't found this to be an issue with Japanese cars so far, but it certainly happens with Mercs, new parking brake shoes and drum/discs are the only remedy.

If you recall Volvo S60/V70/S80 etc up to about 2009 have drum inside disc design, but those Volvo shoes have a habit of delaminating, and you can end up with the friction material floating unattached between the drum and the backing plate, we found this starting when we stripped my son's S60 brakes out, in severe cases the friction material jams the drum completely leading to a locked up hub, which can prove an expensive fix over a £20 set of shoes...the other issue with the Volvo shoes is the shoes hold down springs go slack so the shoes are floating around anyway, so anyone reading this make sure you have new hold down springs for the shoes ready to fit if you are stripping Volvo rear brakes out, because almost no one keeps them on the shelf.

Edited by gordonbennet on 05/05/2019 at 11:58