December 20, 2004

• Crazy kids with their crazy pranks?? Even if the handbrake wasn't on, or the cable snapped, if you were on a relatively flat surface the car shouldn't move if it's in gear.
• Were you on a slope or on a flat surface?
• yes, it was a slope, the first level of your typically upward-winding parking garage. but what puzzles me deeply that tha car maintained a straight line in reverse for so long until slamming into the other vehicle.
• If it was really very cold, maybe the teeth in the ratchet that holds the brake in place could shrink enough to release it? Define very cold. But yeah, I would suspect some human agency in your place too.
• Well, the steering wheel locks so if the wheels are straight, there isn't any option but roll in a straight line. (Which is why you are supposed to turn your wheels when you part on a slope.)
• Not on ice,, if it was on ice, it would just skid in a straight line, sometimes even if the wheels are turned
• You say the parking brake "popped out" (i.e. the handle was up, then when you got to the accident scene it was down?) Just want to make sure. If so, sounds suggestive of a bad ratchet mechanism, or human/divine intervention.
• ... or snapped cable as Bondurant said. The nagging question is what does the brake handle do now?
• Doh
• If the car rolled backwards in a straight line along a curved ramp, maybe the alignment was off?
• If I remember my car anatomy correctly, the emergency lever is connected to a wire with travels back to the rear brakes, mechanically linked to the read caliper via an arm that enacts a piston that squeezes the hydraulic brake fluid which in turn squeezes the pad against the friction surface that's bolted to the wheels (drums or rotors, depending). Now, you say the parking brake was all the way up. When properly adjusted it should be fully engaged somewhere in the middle of its possible range, i.e., before it's all the way up. That way as the system ages or wear and tear takes it toll you can increase the travel of the arm until the next servicing. Perhaps this is a figure of speech you used, perhaps all the way is all the way until it's fully engaged, but... If you travel the arm to its maximum point, it doesn't mean the brake in engaged to its maximum, just that the arm has traveled and you need brake servicing. So...dragging this out even further... Could it be that your emergency lever needs adjustment or your back brakes are gone? Or...since you found the car door open could it have just been hooligans? And... when you park on reasonably level surfaces use first or reverse gear for holding the car steady and not the e-brake. In snowy seasons when salt is on the road it can get in the brakes and cause the pad to speed rust to the drum/rotor (what you're engaging with the lever). The result is a tow and a hefty repair bill.
• I had my RX-7 roll down the street with the parking brake "on", due to what nonbinary said. No collision, due to having turned the wheels all the way over and an empty street. My parking brake cable had stretched,and was no longer engaging the back brake. Quite common on cable actuated parking brakes, I later discovered. Cost me $35 to get it adjusted and the car never did it again. Oh yeah and I was not in gear.
• On second thought I was in gear, but the car wasn't
• A friend of mine had his Saab roll down a steep street on Russian Hill in San Francisco a bunch of years back. The parking brake had been applied. The cops told him that parking brake failure is a more common occurence than one might think. Lesson: curb your wheels.
• Like everyone else said, curb your wheels, put your car in park (first gear if a standard). yes, it was a slope, the first level of your typically upward-winding parking garage. On your typically upward-winding parking garage, you park perpendicular to the slope. In no parking garage that I know of do you park so that your car can roll downhill. WTF?
• wow- thanks for all the great thinking on this mofites. my wheels weren't curbed, as the deck isn't that steep. the brake wasn't fully depressed by the time i got there (after seeing all this, i was) but just below half-way. despite the steepness of the mystery, i'm beginning to suspect more and more some human role in this, but i will have my cable tightened (thanks, zedcaster!), remember to curb my wheels (thanks, hawthorne wingo) and to lock my friggin' door!
• Of course, I found out a couple years ago that my truck doesn't even have a parking brake as the previous owner seems to have cut the cable for some reason! I always curb the tires and make sure to leave it in gear (Its a stick shift) and haven't had any problems yet, knock on wood!
• hurray for argh!
• Thanks to this thread I had a dream infiltration last night. My father's car was in the shop and he'd borrowed a Geo Metro from my brother (though not the brother who actually owned one once) and it wasn't staying put in the dream. The odd thing was that it wasn't one made by Suzuki, as in real-life, it was a special one made by Range Rover. So in my dream I kept having to run out and put it back on the driveway and admired the super, extra special quality feel of the Range Rover edition Metro. This while wondering why my visit to my parent's house was going to be about nothing else besides running to the driveway every thirty seconds. My parents eventually put lawn chairs on the driveway to chat with me while I wrestled with the car. This dream is odd because my parents would never borrow a car from anyone and would just rent one. Somehow my father would end up with some fancy edition of a car. And especially odd that we didn't just put a hunk of wood behind a tire to stop the rolling.
• Completely unrelated: my first car was a huge old Falcon XB station wagon and we drove it south to Dunedin in winter. It snowed and was sufficiently cold that our handbrake somehow froze when we were parked at the top of a hill and we couldn't get the brake off. We fixed this by having one person crawl under the car and tug on the cable until it came loose. The car wasn't in gear and we hadn't curbed the wheels and the only reason the car didn't roll over the person underneath when the cable came loose was that I was casually leaning against the bumper.