# Parking brake sticking in cold weather



## NuMatt21114 (Mar 20, 2017)

Hey all. I have a '14 LTZ with rear disc brakes. Despite most always parking on level ground, I'm religious about using my parking brake. At the beginning of December I left for work one morning and it was much colder than it had been to that point. I dropped the parking brake handle and headed out of the neighborhood. The car seemed very sluggish, but I figured maybe the tranny hadn't warmed up yet. Drove about a mile and a half before stopping for gas. When I set the parking brake I noticed the handle went most of the way up before engaging, at which point I figured the parking brake was stuck. Not willing to drive the 45 miles to work with it stuck, I turned around and headed home. I crawled under the car with a heat gun cranked all the way up and heated both calipers until they were smokin hot, but had no luck freeing them. I ended up calling AAA and having it towed to the dealer. By the time the dealer got the car some 5 or so hours later, they said it arrived and the brake wasn't stuck at all. They adjusted the parking brake (the brake engages much better when pulling on the handle now), but otherwise they told me they couldn't find any problem. The said I probably drove through some water that splashed up on the parking brake mechanism and it froze. They said if I know it's going to be cold, I should just not use the parking brake. That seems like an entirely unacceptable answer to me. With cold weather setting in more often now, I want to try to get to the bottom of this. It ONLY sticks when it is very cold outside. But it's sticking more often now that winter finally showed up here. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the possible cause? Thanks.


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## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

Cable is likely seizing and you just cant feel it.

Any ice on the rotors or whatever will break instantly.

A new cable will allow more force to be transferred which may free it. Them adjusting the cable may help a bit too. Should be a bit more force at play but to help preventing things from seizing.


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