Tighten Parking Brake, How-To
 

Greetings all,

It seems that ever since the "fixed" the famous squeek in the rear of my 06 FEH the parking brake does nothing unless I really yank up on it quite far. Last time it was in for service I spoke with them about tightning it, however they stated it would be over $150.00 in labor since they had to remove the rear wheels and inspect the brake...yeah I was rolling my eyes too.

I believe there should be a way to simply tighten the linkage connecting the handle to the brake. Usually this is located on the handle itself, which I imagine is under the boot cover. Can anyone confirm this before I go digging around?

Would appreciate any help!

Thanks

-Eric

Re: Tighten Parking Brake, How-To
 

Tightening the cable is not the correct way to adjust the parking brake and if done that way it can leave the parking brake hardware loose and could fall out into the drum part of the rotor, ruining the rotor. You must remove the caliper and rotor to access the adjuster to tighten the parking brake shoes. If you do this remember to disable the ABS/REGEN brake system so that it will not do a test while apart.

That said if they worked on the parking brake or replaced the rotor while fixing the squeak then they did not properly service the system and left you with an out of adjustment parking brake!

BTW what are they charging a labor hour? Book time on this adjustment is .5 hrs

Re: Tighten Parking Brake, How-To
 

This is a gripe of mine also.
Unless I pull the handle all the way ( and I mean ALL the way ) up, mine is useless. And then, mine won't hold my car on a 6% slope. Forget about San Francisco! I wish I could tighten mine also, and do it myself. Is it really that difficult?

Re: Tighten Parking Brake, How-To
 

Exactly the same thing I have...quite annoying

Re: Tighten Parking Brake, How-To
 

It's not real hard, just beware of the ABS test and dissable it before you remove the caliper. You don't have to totally remove the caliper, esp hydraulically, its just like you were going to remove the rotor which you are. after you remove the rotor you will see an adjuster very similar to old school drum brakes however this is NOT an auto adjuster. Look at the threads on the adjuster and extend them about one turn and try the fit of the rotor. You want the tightest adjustment that allows you to easily refit the rotor. Perform on both sides. Test the parking, with rotor installed then reassemble. This should be in the shop manual.