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Old 03-10-2010, 02:09 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jst2878 View Post
Every time you're about to park, put your x in neutral. If your x starts rolling you're probably on an incline. Keep the x in neutral with your foot on the brake. Pull up your emergency brake lever then take your foot off the brake. This will transfer the weight of the x to the rear drum brake instead of this little piece of metal in your transmission which in the long run could snap. This might not be every transmission problem but it is preventative maintenance.
I don't agree that this is preventative maintenance. Preventative maintenance would be replacing it before it broke. You are just proposing not using it as it was designed.

Applying the park brake first may feel good, and doesn't hurt, especially on a steep hill, but the parking pawl (the little piece of metal that holds the vehicle on an incline) is designed to do just that, for the life of the vehicle. It won't break in normal use. It will potentially break if you let the vehicle start rolling forward or back and then put it into park, effectively shock loading it.

I have seen drivers rely on a parking brake instead of the parking pawl, because they are trying to 'save it'. Some of them have forgotten to put the vehicle in park at all, and when the vehicle rolled away we got to go out with the tow truck and recover the vehicle. In those cases it would have been better if they just used park, as the vehicle was designed for.
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