I hate foot parking brakes

[Supreme Wu]

Anyone else keep accidentally kicking and releasing it as you climb into the car? It's so F'n touchy, a little tap and suddenly my car lurches 6 inches forward or back depending on the parking angle.

[fiveliterbeater]

one thing i never understood about our car is why the hell they didn't give us a handbrake instead of the foot-parking brake since our cars are sportier by nature like the BMW's.

[EniGmA1987]

M's are the luxury sedan, so maybe a handbrake was too "sporty"?

And no I have never hit the parking brake pedal.

[Boon]

Anyone else keep accidentally kicking and releasing it as you climb into the car? It's so F'n touchy, a little tap and suddenly my car lurches 6 inches forward or back depending on the parking angle.

I have never set mine in any automatic I have ever driven. Not really needed unless you are parking on a huge angle.

[M4T5]

I use mine pretty much where ever I park. I do the same in my truck. It's kind of like putting on your seat belt as soon as you get in. It's just automatic for me to use it and release it on a daily basis. I've seen a few cars and one SUV get bumped in a parking lot. The bump actually launched a Tahoe 30 ft across the parking lot. I was amazed to see that it was not damaged, and lucky that it didn't hit another car or person. The park lock will actually give away when a particular amount of extra pressure is exerted on it. This is a fail safe to avoid internal transmission damages.It actually made a clicking noise rolling through the parking lot. So, using the parking brake as it was intended might be a good safety measure to start doing on a regular basis. All it took was witnessing that incident for me to start using it on a daily basis.

J

[palincal]

I don't mind the foot parking brake. Hand brakes just won't go well with the clean look of the M's interior.

Slightly off topic...using parking brake relieves pressure off of the parking pawl in the transmission. Ever heard a clunk when getting out of P? or found it hard to move out of P on an incline? That's the parking pawl under stress.

The right way to apply parking brake ( I follow this on an incline):1. Put in neutral.2. Apply parking brake.3. Take foot off brake and let the car rest on the parking brake.4. Put in Park.

On steep inclines like in SFO, I make my passengers get out before removing my foot off the brake

[M4T5]

I don't mind the foot parking brake. Hand brakes just won't go well with the clean look of the M's interior.

Slightly off topic...using parking brake relieves pressure off of the parking pawl in the transmission. Ever heard a clunk when getting out of P? or found it hard to move out of P on an incline? That's the parking pawl under stress.

The right way to apply parking brake ( I follow this on an incline):1. Put in neutral.2. Apply parking brake.3. Take foot off brake and let the car rest on the parking brake.4. Put in Park.

On steep inclines like in SFO, I make my passengers get out before removing my foot off the brake

LOL......I thought I was the only one that understands this and does this same procedure! Thanks for clearing up what it is called. I forgot the name of the part in the transmission that locks the transmission. So I called it the park lock lever. If people actually seen how small the parking paw is.....they might follow our trend more often.

J

[cobblecanyon]

I don't mind the foot parking brake. Hand brakes just won't go well with the clean look of the M's interior.

Slightly off topic...using parking brake relieves pressure off of the parking pawl in the transmission. Ever heard a clunk when getting out of P? or found it hard to move out of P on an incline? That's the parking pawl under stress.

The right way to apply parking brake ( I follow this on an incline):1. Put in neutral.2. Apply parking brake.3. Take foot off brake and let the car rest on the parking brake.4. Put in Park.

On steep inclines like in SFO, I make my passengers get out before removing my foot off the brake

That is exactly how I parked my car. I don't mind the foot brakes at all, only time when it's a problem is when I drive my wife's SUV, my left foot tend to start stepping a couple of times til I realized I don't have a foot brake.

[mjlyn]

I agree with this technique to some extent.....but i think it may be the reason that the original poster says that this car lurches forward or back if he accidentally kicks the brake.

If you set the parking brake first, then the parking pawl may not be locked into it's notch. So if you were to accidentally release the parking brake on an incline (without your foot on the regular brake) the car moves....and if the incline is steep enough, it is possible that park wont engage and the car could keep moving. Thats when you hear the clicking sound that M4T5 mentioned.

Hopefully at this point you are sitting in the drivers seat anyway. But if you happen to be right behind another car.....and you are not expecting it.......you could end up bumping.

I dont usually use the parking brake unless it is a fairly steep incline. Then i do the following.

1. Foot on regular brake2 Put transmission in Park.3 Ease of brakes just enought let the car move an inch or two until I feel /hear park engage4 As soon as i feel it engage I press harder on the brakes so the full weight of the car does not bear down on the transmission. Then I set the parking brake with left foot.

This way i know that park is really engaged and the parking brake is bearing the load of the car on the steep hill.

[gsmollin]

I hate the parking brake too, but for a different reason. I like a hand brake in a sporty car. The M is supposed to be sporty. The push-on-push-off brake is right out of a Caprice or a boat-Caddy, which is what I have to think every time I'm pushing-it-off.

On a related note, I use the brake all the time, because the park function is not reliable to keep the car stopped in park, as other posters have noted. In addition to using the brake, and relieving the stress on the park mechanism, preventing park-lock, I turn the wheels towards the curb when parking on a hill.

[Double E]

Good info in here.

I fell victim to this issue on a gf's car one day. I was 16 & it was an old dodge junker.

Parked on my steep driveway, put it in park & that was it. Went to move it and (column shift) it would not come out of park for anything.

I pulled down on that selector so hard that I broke the internal connection to the transmission and her entire family had to come out and figure out what to do.

If I had just taken another vehicle and ever-so-slightly nudged the stuck one up the hill a little ....while taking it out of park, it would have released the tension on the prawl and I would have been fine.

As it was, it was 3am and we were not expected to be at my house at that time. There was some 'splaining to get through ...as you can imagine.

Good lessons that come from junk vehicles are not soon forgotten.