Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Help No Park Brake!!!!

I have a 95 Zetec GL and had a near collision yesterday with the car infront of me that decided to suddenly stop for no reason. To be honest I kinda panicked and pulled up the park brake to hopefully slow the car down quicker. To my utter dismay nothing happened when I pulled the park brake, luckily my car stopped about 2 inches from the car infront of me. Afterwards, I tried to apply the park brake again while driving and got the same results, nada. As a matter of fact the park brake only stops the car if I'm going like 5 mph. Is this possible, can the park brake totally stop working like that. Any ideas of what could be the cause of such a complete failure. The more I think about that was a really serious situation because if my brakes weren't any good I probably wouldn't be typing this message right now. Any advice anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated.

The brake cable could be bad but your rear brakes might still be OK. (The hand brake only works the rear brakes.) If you have rear drums, the typically self adjust when backing up and applying the brakes. Try stepping on the brake 5-6 times whild backing up to see if this 'adjusts' your rear brakes at all. If that doesn't help, put the rear of the car up on jack stands and turn the rear wheels by hand with the e-brake pulled to see if it is working. You may need to pull the drum and look for brake fluid on the shoes or other problems. Although the front brakes are much more effective at slowing the car, the rear brakes do help out. Yanking up hard on the e-brake should be able to lock up the rear tires.

I have the same exact problem, and it is very troubling because winter is near, and without a strong e-brake i wont be able to have any fun.