Just bought a 03 Z with 9,000 miles and the emergency brake seems to not hold well. Is there a easy way to adjust it or do I have to take it to the dealership?

 

Here you go.

 

+1 what he said.

 

Wow maybe i'm just dumb but i have no idea what those instructions are saying. haha
BTW my car does the same thing. Unless i pull up the brake really high it won't catch, and the car will start rolling...

 

yeah...I had the same problem, but since I was taking it to the dealership for some other things I mentioned it to them and they made the adjustment for me (I'm still under warranty). although the way they told me how they fixed it made it sound as if they were doing a favor for me or something....

 

One dealer wanted to charge me $180 for a parking brake adjustment.

 

What you can try first is the adjustment at the hand brake lever and see if there is enough adjustment there to allow you to just raise it some to have good parking brake engagement if not then you will have to go to the brake itself.

 

if you ever adjusted a drum brake, it's the same thing. Nissan integrated a small drum on the rear rotor to act as the parking brake. So you can loosen the cable via the diagram, but just release the handbrake, then adjust each rear brake by turning the star wheel downward till the rotor locks up, then it says to go back up 5 notches till the rotor/wheel moves freely. Do the other side, then pull on the hand brake, should lock up and have good pressure, if not adjust the cable, then if it still not stopping, you will probably have to change the parking brake pads. It's pretty easy.

 

It is supposed to be that way. All manual Z's are like that. Most manual cars infact. I thought it was a factory problem and took it to the dealer twice. Both times nothing changed. Then i finally asked wat the heck is going on. The tech guy at performance nissan told me the parking brake isnt meant to handle more than 25% grade on its own. You are supposed to put it in first if its uphil or revers if its down and that will hold for sure and then add the parking brake just for added safety. A tremendous amount of force will be needed to move a car against its gear.

makes sense huh.

hope this helps

 

I prefer to put the brake on first to hold as much as possible before putting it in gear, I do not want too much stress on the tranny, not sure about the 25% thing maybe he is just blowing you off I would think that it should hold but I live in florida so not many hills.

 

Thanks for the Info westpack, I'll give it a try.

 

The dealership won't cover it. I went there today for some other things and told them about it. But said that brakes aren't covered under warranty, and that my brakes probably needed replaced, so that's why you need to pull so far up for it to grab. Not sure if i believe that or not. But oh well...

 

Does the parking brake affect the passenger rear or the drivers rear tire... or both ?

 

Mike, both rear wheels.

Track, sure the brakes aren't covered under warranty, but if they were a decent dealership, they would at least adjust the parking brake for you. The parking/e brake shouldn't wear out that fast, it's primarily used for parking or emergency's, the only time it would be worn that fast is if you drove it around with the parking brake on all the time, or use it for drifting. The funny thing is if it was worn that much, shouldn't the dealership be concerned about safety and check it? I would slam that dealership with negative comments if you get one of those service cards to send back.

 

Yeah i agree. I asked them if it was just an adjustment issue and they said no because it's self adjusting. So they were like we can look at it for you but it won't be covered and it will cost $22.50 just to look at it. So i told them to forget about it.

 

My parking brake is the same way. It won't hold the car for crap! I need to bring it to the dealer but I hate going there.


Hah, funny you should mention the service cards. They always give them to me when I get good service, the few times I have gotten horrible service they never seem to give me the card. What a coincidence!

 

Ask for it everytime. Also I asked how much a parking brake adjustment was and they said $180. I said no.

 

Interesting. I had the dealer adjust my e-brake at around 8k miles. Now I'm at 16k and it goes from super lose to super tight in like 2 clicks. I'm also hearing a scraping noise at times from my right-rear wheel (usually when cold out). The sound goes away when I press on the brake or goes away longer if I yank up on the e-brake really hard and then undo it. Interesting.

The dealer "could not replicate" as usual.

 

My parking brake sucks too. It doesn't hold worth a crap.

 

How many other cars have you actually driven. When pulling the hand brake you should be able to feel some drag with in the first 2-3 clicks. I know in my Z I can pull it up at least 5 clicks and probably still push the car. Thats not right. a 25% incline is pretty steep for normal driving conditions, I always leave my car in gear and pull the hand brake up. I've been meaning to adjust it but havnt gotten around to it yet.

I would say you would get better results actually adjusting the shoes out rather than adjusting the nut on the handle.