Neogenic

Hello,
Any tips? The old mechanical sticks or pedals were amazing responsive but now what?

MrBBQ

iTrader: (9)

We do have a parking brake switch somewhat hidden few inches under the start button. Here you can manually engage or disengage the parking brake. How fast and how hard it engages is another question .

jkeifer3

All I can think of is open the door and drag your foot or you could carry an anchor attached to the car with a heavy chain and throw it out just before impact

Seriously, complete brake system failure is quite rare these day but I understand what you meant by having the parking brake as a last line of defense.

FishBike

I think it depends how fast you're going and how much room you have to stop when you realize the brakes have failed. If you're lucky, you have lots of room, in which case I'd downshift to lower gears using the paddle shifters until I was going slowly (e.g. under 20 MPH) as engine braking in low gears is pretty effective. Once in a safe place to stop, press and hold the parking brake button (per the manual, that's what you must do to engage it while driving).

You could both downshift AND engage the parking brake at the same time if you need to stop quicker. This still won't stop you as well as the regular service brakes though, and there is some thinking time involved, so probably still most useful when you have plenty of time and space to work with.

More likely what happens is you realize the brakes have failed when you have only a short distance in which to stop the car. You are probably better off looking for a clear path you can escape through, and if there isn't one, deciding quickly what you are going to hit

Neogenic

Downshifting requires time to reduce speed and thus not viable in panic. I was thinking about a situation were brake is lost and you are in a panic state. Tilting down my head and bending neck to find the P button took my eyes off the road as well; I lost styring that is! I lost a lot precious time to brake the car. What about shifting the gearbox directly to park mode?

FishBike

I've been in cars where the driver accidentally grabbed "park" while in motion. It made an interesting noise and otherwise did nothing.

terrycs

They did that in an episode of Mythbusters. It doesn't work.

zicogold

Having experienced this unpleasant event some years ago, I agree with the suggestions posted. One can also pump the brakes as there maybe enough fluid in the system to give you some braking. I was able to brake the vehicle to a complete stop, despite a fully severed brake line. The vehicle I was in, I don't think had ABS, so not sure in that situation how the ABS braking system responds?

Neogenic

Thx for the piece of info on mythbusting. When it comes to last measures you still are in a mechanical machine and last resort solutions should be mechanical. Electricity can fail. An EMP could knock out your system (When **** hits the fan; I dont think your president wants to see someone else sitting in his chair:-).

A hacker can toy with you. NSA could decide to kill you by just disabling system before they crash your car in oblivion:-) Hacking cars is going to be a huge security concern. There is a team of comuter science here in Sweden which managed to do this already.
So any solutions out there beside the obvious of opening the door and using your Flint Stone feets?