So. A little back story. A while back I had a caliper fail so I was advised to use my E-brake to stop instead of my foot brake so that it wouldn't lock up in the clamped position. So I had to drive this way for a couple days until I could get replacement calipers.

Well I recently noticed that my E-brake has zero stopping power now. If I rip it I do nothing but slightly slow down, almost no noticeable deceleration if you weren't paying attention to it.

So what should I do to fix this? Ive heard some cars have a way to set the brake back up, a friend who works for toyota told me this. But I havent found anything to do that yet. Ive also been told I can manually tighten it so it will work again, but I have no idea where to even start looking to do that.

Any advice?

 

tighten the e-brake cable or look into replacing the shoes

 

Not sure if this is true on our cars, but if you take off the rear wheels, there should be a small hole on the hub of the rotor. Inside that hole is a dial that you can turn with a screwdriver to adjust where the shoes are (closer or further from the inside hub).
But would just tighten the cable by the e-brake handle.

 

Tightening the E-brake cable is what I have been told to do a few times now. What is the best way to do that? Do I need to take apart the center console to get to it?

 

well you can do that or adjust it at the rear hub. if you do on the inside you will have to take out the center console i believe

 

its quite simple to tighten it. lift the console lid and remove junk (if needed) and there are two screws in the bottom of the compartment, take them out and the back peace of the console should come off pretty easy. (may need to pull e-brake up for easier tear down) now you need a nut driver or a ratchet and socket (not sure of the size) and look under the flap thing on the e-brake and there should be a nut on the cable i believe, tighten it....
Hopefully that helps. good luck!

 

Awesome! Thank you so much. Ill give this a shot asap.

 

i should probably do this also. mine is pretty loose cause i can pull it up all the way and it still isnt that tight

 

^^ I'm glad i could actually help with something lol hope it works out for the both of you!

 

doesnt tightening the bolt though only do one side? or does it take care of both sides?

 

Im guessing this is to me... and if i understand correctly, my answer is that yes, i am pretty sure it does take care of both sides

 

you should also check how much shoe you have left in there, if you take the rear wheels off, pull the lower caliper guide pin on each side and you can rotate the caliper out of the way enough to pull the rotor off, and check how much stuff you got left on the shoes, bottom center of the assembly is the little sprocket you turn to adjust shoe throw, make sure to use the same number of turns on both sides.

 

Agreed. The parking brake isn't meant to be used the way you used it. The shoes have very little material on them so I would definitely inspect them and see if they need to be replaced or not.

 

lol im guilty a bit of pulling the ebrake to do some powerslides but been a very long while probably should look at the life on the shoes in there

 

once in a while won't hurt it, you'll be doing more harm to other parts of the car

I leave my car in gear when i'm parked, but i often pull the hand brake to park just to keep the cables moving.