# Hand brake and transmission failure



## juha (Jan 22, 2016)

Anyone had problems with handbrakes/transmission with Cruze 2013?
We had a serious incident where our Cruze in the middle of the evening, decided to roll down our hill side backwards.

Handbrake was still on when it stopped. And since the car is with automatic transmission, we are more than amazed what happened.
Luckily no one was hurt, but the car got seriously busted.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Back in the old days, when parked on a hill, say upward, in your drivers test had to turn the wheels to the left, so if the parking brake fails, the front wheel will hit the curb. But only works on a street with a curb.

With an AT, have to be in park to remove the key or even to stop the engine on this new stuff, a pawl drops into a gear to lock up the output of the transmission. Use to be far more robust with heavy cast iron, now aluminum to save weight. If bumped hard enough, the tip of that pawl can break off. Or in some cases, even crack the side of the transmission, but this will be evident if all of your fluid leaks out.

It locks the ring gear of the differential, but with the car jacked up, still can turn a wheel, the other will turn in the opposite position. So effectively, only one wheel is being locked if the other is on ice. 

Cruze uses a self adjusting parking brake, never really liked this, when going down, toothed dogs can slide backwards, but when pulling up, bite into the cable. And that bite could slip.

So these are possible causes, and since your Cruze is wrecked, at least nobody was killed, have no idea what you are going to do about it. Outside of calling your dealer or upper management in GM and your insurance company. 

Been some major lawsuits regarding people claiming their vehicles slipped out of park running over their own kids, so locking the stick in park became law.

What they didn't think about because we have leaders that don't know how to think, if the vehicle is in park, and the engine is left in the idle position, can still slip out of park. It is no longer locked! But this is what a parking brake is for. But not worth a darn if it slips. 

Really feel a self adjusting parking brake is insane just to save adjusting a nut like once or twice during the life of a vehicle. Parking brake lever should only go up about 6" maximum, some guys on this board were complaining theirs was going all the way up. Only cure was to take them to their dealers and have the entire parking brake mechanism replaced. What about yours? 6" inches up or all the way?


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

juha said:


> Anyone had problems with handbrakes/transmission with Cruze 2013?
> We had a serious incident where our Cruze in the middle of the evening, decided to roll down our hill side backwards.
> 
> Handbrake was still on when it stopped. And since the car is with automatic transmission, we are more than amazed what happened.
> Luckily no one was hurt, but the car got seriously busted.


had that happen but in a manual in the snow. Usually I have the car off and in gear so the front and rear wheels are locked. This time I left it running so the windows didn't frost over. I literally just got the kids out and walked inside. I walked outside to what I thought was someone stealing my car. The back wheels never got traction and slid down the driveway into the street. Luckily the kids weren't still inside and no cars were coming down this street or I would have been in similar situation with a damaged car. 

let us know if they can figure out why it failed like that. Have you ever removed the square plug from the hole and released the shifter manually because the battery died, the key wouldn't come out and shifter wouldn't come out of park the normal way?


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## Toothless (Apr 7, 2013)

i have a manual and had my hand brake totally replaced because it snapped at 10k miles. i wasn't doing hand brake turns or ripping on it just using it for parking. never had an experience like this from other cars in the family


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## ChevyGuy (Dec 13, 2014)

NickD said:


> Back in the old days, when parked on a hill, say upward, in your drivers test had to turn the whee


And if there is no curb, you turned it the other way so the car would steer into the side of the road instead of into the road.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

ChevyGuy said:


> And if there is no curb, you turned it the other way so the car would steer into the side of the road instead of into the road.


But Patman's big rock is there!

Curious as to how Juha made out.


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## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

NickD said:


> But Patman's big rock is there!
> 
> Curious as to how Juha made out.


 Is it just me or does the Rock look more menacing?


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Eddy Cruze said:


> Is it just me or does the Rock look more menacing?


Ouch!


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Kid's rear disc calipers were dragging on her 2015 Kia base model Soul. One quick look, saw the levers were not returning to their home position. Just commented, not sure is you have a self adjusting parking brake lever or one with a nut on it. If the former, have to take your vehicle to the dealer for a replacement.

Was real easy to pop off the rear console cover, they also don't like screws anymore and saw an adjustment nut. Loosened it until those levers returned to their home position, wheel spun freely. Practically identical to my Cruze, except Kia is using a much simpler nut for adjustment. 

To make sure they were working properly, screwed in both caliper pistons a full turn with a low brake pedal. Worked the hand brake lever several time, brake pedal came back up to the top with about half an inch of free play. With the problems I had with my Cruze self adjusting hand brake, wish it also had an adjusting nut, simple.

To further verify her parking brake was working, drove it at 20 mph, with my finger holding in that push button, pulled the brake handle up to make darn sure it would stop the vehicle. 

Reminded me of another kid's 90 T-Bird with a self adjusting blend door lever, dang thing never worked, was suppose to move it from stop to stop to calibrate it. Worked once or twice then problems again. Just found that self adjusting mechanism, removed it and threw it as far away as I could. Put a clamp on the cable housing, and adjusted it just once, never had a problem with it again. 

Another example of self adjustment I hated is with a hydraulic clutch, should get about one inch of freeplay, but that can go away. On our Honda's with a MT, had a plastic wheel with even a pointer on it. Just had to give it a couple of clicks now and then to get that proper free play, and when that pointer returned to zero, time to replace the clutch disc.

Fortunately on another kid's 2002 Sunfire, was the master cylinder was back leaking, but if it was the slave cylinder, transaxle would have to been removed. Again KISS, keep it simple stupid. Self adjusting sucks.


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## Patman (May 7, 2011)

obermd said:


> Ouch!


Seems to be a little more than the Rock I found? Mine didn't do as much damage LOL


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## spaycace (Feb 9, 2012)

I've pretty much always been able to back up (with some throttle applied) with the parking brake engaged on many vehicles I've owned present and past ... but when trying to go forward, that's when it would bite and not allow the vehicle to move. The brake on my G8 was so far out of adjustment when new that it too had the same issue one day when I had to run into the house to grab something I forgot in the house. I was extremely lucky and didn't have any significant damage to the car, but had an adjustment made the next day! Hope you get it figured out though.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

78 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. had the worse parking brake ever, one of the first cars to use 4 wheel disc brakes. Owners manual said to step hard on the service brakes, and hit that foot operated parking brake hard. Even at this would roll down the slightest decline.

If this wasn't bad enough that ratcheting mechanism to adjust the rear calipers was a steel ring locked against an aluminum piston, then excessive parking braking movement occurred, it was suppose to rotate that piston and stay there. But that ring wore a groove in that soft piston, so it would rock back and forth. Replacement parts were not available, Caddy dealer wanted 300 bucks back then for a new caliper, but he said it would only be good for about 5,000 miles, that's how long the original lasted. How can they approve of crap like this.

So I had to remove the caliper and turn the piston by hand or otherwise the service brake pedal would go to the floor with just enough clearance so I could slip it back on. Put up with this for several years, but not the only problem, took their 475 engine and under bored it to a 425, shortened the body letting this big hung of iron hang over the front suspension causing a severe over steering problem.

Was just about the worse winter driving car I have every owned. To meet CAFE requirement, dropped the rear end ratio to 2.2 stepping on the gas was like on a moped. Finally gave up with only about 60K miles on it and took a beating. But not nearly the beating guys that purchased that diesel for. Became unpatriotic and went Japanese. But the 92 DeVille was a huge improvement, had drum brakes in the rear with that huge U shaped spring. 04 Cavalier had that spring also, troublefree, but on the Cruze, when back to the 1941 Chevy weak springs, this is why you guys are having adjustment problems.

Selected 4WD disc brakes for my Cruze, but got stuck with unplated ones, was a battle but got new plated ones under warranty. Asked for one of the old ones, dealer was a basterd and still is, was very curious how they were doing that ratcheting mechanism, said I would even return, he still is a basterd. Never going back. Other GM dealer in town was the same way.

Those torque plates that hold the pads were badly rusted jamming the clips into the pads so were dragging on the rotors, they refused to replace those. Got tired of fighting these basterds, cleaned them and painted them with anti-seize. Also left a ton of air in my system that was another chore. 04 Cavalier brakes were absolutely troublefree, sure screwed this up with the Cruze, then this crazy self adjusting parking brake handle.

This is my experience. Keeping those torque plates clean was a constant problem. They blame the road salt, I blamed dam poor plating.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

If they used something like this, wouldn't be a problem, but a stupid friction ring?










The parking brake lever would be attached to that gear, and if the play was large enough, that pawl would engage the next tooth to advance the piston mounted on threads.

Using something like this on drums, except the pawl is on the shoe and the gear is on that threaded spreader. But if your shoes will not self center, that pawl won't even be close to that gear.


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