gsobol

Thanks, at least I know that what I'm experiencing is out of the ordinary.

The G Man

cmarshack use the parking brakes to slow down the car not stop the car. At this point, I would play dumb with the dealer and ask them to fix the problem. Something is broken in there for sure. After the fix, I would not try to stop the car again with the parking brakes when in motion.

LexGX

iTrader: (1)

so we have a handbreak in the gx and no e-brake? from what i understand or what i assumed is that, that particular brake is used for like something out of the ordinary like someone stopped too quick in front of you and your brakes failed so your last resorts is to use the handbrake/e-brake to bring it to a complete stop (preventing you to have a collision with the driver in front of you). I hardly use the handbrake but my parents do when they drive my car or any car. Usually they'll use it when they stopped, put on the handbrake/e-brake and then put it in park and shut off the engine. I only do it sometimes when i remember to.

Or am i getting this whole handbrake/e-brake concept wrong?

Josh's GX

I'm with LexGX; I only use my hand/e-brake when I park my GX on a slope. I put the vehicle in neutral, and then pull the brake, then put the vehicle in park. But I don't ever use the hand/e-brake to slow myself while in motion, I would if it was a last resort for me...or if I wanted to do some donuts in a parking lot with snow on the ground.

V8_Fan

The only thing I've heard of failing on the brakes is the electronic brake booster. If it fails, it'll feel like there's no brakes, but there is a failsafe mode it goes into. In this mode, you only get braking power to the front calipers, and a lot less braking power than normal since all pressure will be completely supplied by the master cylinder w/o booster. The rear calipers are completely powered by the electronic booster, so they have no braking power in the event the electronic booster fails.

Something is obviously wrong w/ your drum shoe adjustment. Only way to tell is to pull the rotors off and check the internals. Since they are drums, they should (as all drums) self adjust the gap when you back-up and then brake. On my LX, I can easily put the tranny in neutral, put the e-brake on when on a hill, and let go of the brake pedal and the vehicle will hold w/o slipping, and it weighs like 6400 lbs!

LexGX

iTrader: (1)

i think that the OP need to bring the gx to the dealer and let them take a look at it. You don't use it often but once you need it, you don't want to fail on you and that could cause serious injury or maybe even death. Deng i should like a car manual. But anyhow, I also have a 1998 toyota camry and its hand brake/e-brake's placement is like our gx. Well, it seems like i haven't used it in so long it doesn't work anymore. It is similar to the OP's post about the handle being too loose. I put very light pressure and it came all the way up. I'm glad i did that, now i need to either tigten up the cable to bring it in for service.