Hi, I usually engage my hand break when I park my vehicle(06 toyota solara se 126k miles 4 cylinder), My sister drove it to the grocery store about 2 miles away from home and didn't disengage the hand break(she doesn't engage hers EVER, so forgot to disengage it), how was the vehicle able to move, is the hand break working at all. And should I be worried she damaged something?
I did disengage it and drove around and it runs fine didn't hear any weird sounds or something wanted to be sure it didn't damage anything I should look into immediately. Please Help
Thank you for your responses.
how was the vehicle able to move,
Realize that you have mechanical hand brake, all it does is to lock the rear brakes. It does not have anything to do with car engine or elecronics so it is possible to drive the car while it is still up.
didn't hear any weird sounds or something wanted to be sure it didn't damage anything
If the handbrake still works fine, I would not worry about it.
The lever you are referring to is not an emergency brake. It is a Parking Brake as per your owner's manual, section One, page 2, item #15. It is not designed to stop a moving vehicle.
how was the vehicle able to move
The parking brake is not strong enough to stop an engine with throttle applied. Even so, there would have been signification resistance, and she must have been really putting her foot into it to make the car go. If she is not an observant enough driver to notice when a vehicle is not responding the way it should, I don't think I would trust her with the keys.
should I be worried she damaged something?
The brakes probably got smoking hot. Verify that the parking brake still holds the vehicle on a steep incline. The rear brakes may have also gotten warped from the heat, and the pad linings would have gotten some accelerated wear.
Lol she has a her car, has been driving for 6 yrs no accident or anything, I believe she was just in a hurry, and probably thought my car being that old rides that way. Hehehe
Just because she doesn't get into accidents, doesn't mean she won't wreck your car.
She obviously ignored the bright red brake light on the instrument panel. What else is she going to ignore?
Low tire pressure? Overheating engine? That could total the car.
It should not have caused any damage if only driven a short distance. Just a little extra wear and tare on the rear brakes. We've all done that one I think.
Why don't you test the hand brake/parking brake on a slight incline to see if it still holds the car from rolling? Stopped and in neutral. If it doesn't you should have your brakes checked. Good luck.
Parking brake are sometimes just a modified drum brake. If anything the shoes friction material might've lost some. Now if thats an E-Brake and it was forced to be used for 2 miles with it engaged, that will be a completely different story.
Thank you al for the responses, the parking/hand brake still works, and heat the rear brake rotor has a couple of lines sort of on it, just returned from a mechanic ship, they said it should be fine, but sometime in the further I should look to Changi the two rear rotors and brake pads.