We had temps in the teens and my battery died. I put car in neutral and pushed it out of garage. I waited for my bf to come home to help me jump start it, but when we did, the back passenger wheel was totally locked up. He thinks perhaps the act of pushing with a dead battery may have caused the parking brake to lock up. I engaged and disengaged the brake a few times, until the light went off. Any ideas on how to reset the parking brake or free up the locked wheel?

The most likely spot for water to freeze and lock your e-brake is inside the brake cable. If you're still having sub-freezing temps then it won't unlock by itself. Running a bunsen torch carefully over and around the cable to warm it up will be the quickest way to unfreeze it. It's possible but less likely that a parking brake shoe is frozen to the inner drum, if that's the case then warming the backing plate the same way should free it. If neither of those work, then it's possible you have a rusted-and-seized cable and not a frozen one.

Thank you for your quick reply! I have never done anything like this, would a hair dryer work? Where do I find this cable? Is this something the car would need to be jacked up to do? I don't have much room to work in my garage. How detrimental would it be to back the car out of the garage with the seized wheel? It would pretty much just be sliding over ice. Thanks for your help, I'm obviously not a car person. I may just have to have it towed to the shop or wait till a thaw!

Hair dryer should work if it's fairly powerful, although it won't be as quick as a torch. The parking brake cables run beneath the car from the brake backing plate on each rear wheel to the center of the car beneath the console. The Rogue has enough ground clearance that you can probably reach most of the cable by shimmying underneath, but it won't be comfy on a frozen floor. If you have an electric blanket you can probably just drape it over the cable and give it a few hours to work. This site has a pretty good explanatory pic, it isn't a Rogue but it will give you the idea about where the cables are:

https://www.testingautos.com/car_care/p ... ables.html

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TJVBFctqTZ5cZAAB8

Would it be this cable?

No, that looks like the ABS sensor wire. Just got an '09 in the shop here, this pic is taken on the driver side in front of the rear wheel looking across the car. The passenger side will be similar. The fat cable with brown mud on it is the parking brake.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BvAJUE ... sp=sharing

This kind of reminded me when I had to use a hairdryer a few days ago on my ice machine inside my refrigerator because the tube froze and I couldn’t make ice cubes.

Hard to believe you could get enough moisture inside the brake cable for it to freeze up. More likely a seized caliper slide pin.

itsa300zx wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:22 pm

Hard to believe you could get enough moisture inside the brake cable for it to freeze up. More likely a seized caliper slide pin.

I dunno, seized sliders will usually just cause a pull and heat up the rotor, not lock it up so solidly that it'll drag without rolling. That's what the OP described. Back in Jersey I saw cables with bad upper seals fill with water and jam from the combination of ice and rust, it doesn't happen a lot but it does happen. Maybe water in the brake fluid too, I could buy that on an older car if it's never had a flush. Could also be mechanical, and the maybe cold is just a coincidence. Without a blowtorch or a warm garage, she may not find out till it thaws.

Thanks for the info VStar, very informative. I've seen them rust and seize over time but just never frozen.
Hope the OP figures is out and update.

Let us know once you get it solved!

If you can get it into the garage with the door closed, I'd put a couple space heaters around that back wheel, then give it a few hours/overnight. The entire garage should warm up, but especially that back wheel area. So whether it's a brake cable or something else, everything back there will be well thawed. If it's still locked up, freezing parts is not your problem...

Keep warm! I'm suppose to see negative temps in a couple days.

Thanks everyone. We did try with one small space heater, but we are going to get a few larger ones to crank it up in there. I appreciate everyone's input! I'll let you know what happens.

Deb99 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 11:32 am

Thanks everyone. We did try with one small space heater, but we are going to get a few larger ones to crank it up in there. I appreciate everyone's input! I'll let you know what happens.

Well?