Automatic owners: does your parking brake rock & roll?

[toff]

Hello all,

Unless I know I'm going to be stopping for 30 seconds+ I generally just use the foot brake (whilst leaving the auto box in the D position).

On the odd occasion that I use the P position on the auto box; I find that the car rolls forward a few inches before "bouncing" off the stop position!

Does that make sense to anybody else / does anybody else experience that? After engaging the P position, I've now started to slowly release the foot brake to prevent the bouncing!

Is this normal? The parking brake on my S6 auto didn't seem to operate like this.

Al.

[Bugbear]

Yes it does and its normal. It is, however, something that should not be done as the whole weight of the car is on a small bit in the gearbox called a parking pawl. They can break and are expensive to replace.
Handbrake then Park.................always.

[toff]

Thanks for your reply.

When parking permanently (i.e. not just at traffic lights) I always:


Press the footbrake
Engage the handbrake
Select P onthe auto box
Release the footbrake


It's just at traffic lights that I don't use the handbrake, thanks for your hint.

That raises an interesting question: the highway code says you must apply the handbrake at a stop sign... I wonder if this applies to Autos too, or if engaging the Parking gear counts?

Al.

[gjrwilliams82]

Flicking the gear selector up from Drive to Park also flicks the reversing lights on as you go through 'R' - good for frightening the old dear who stopped behind you, but little else.

If you need to stop, put the handbrake on.