Parking Brake malfunction

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by ukwildcat

When the Boeing 777 was going through trials, one MAJOR flaw that came out was the "asymmetric thrust" feature. It was intended to make the aircraft easy to handle in the event of an engine failure.

The problem was that it worked SO WELL that pilots could not even tell that they HAD lost an engine.. And they decided that was NOT a good thing, no matter how proud the engineers were that they pulled it off.

I'm not up on Aviation, but many years ago I was the product planning manager for a major aircraft engine manufacturer (which means GE, Pratt, or Rolls). I would have thought that they would have left that "feature" in the system and either made it into a manually activated option, or left it as automatic with an alarm/"pop the priority warning message to the display screen" operation.

[ukwildcat]

Originally Posted by Penguin

I'm not up on Aviation, but many years ago I was the product planning manager for a major aircraft engine manufacturer (which means GE, Pratt, or Rolls). I would have thought that they would have left that "feature" in the system and either made it into a manually activated option, or left it as automatic with an alarm/"pop the priority warning message to the display screen" operation.

Ah.. Sorry, I didn't complete the "story," sorry..

Oh yes - the feature was left in, but you're right.. It was made MANUAL (have to press the button to turn it on) and they decided they wanted an a chime. If it happens to also catch fire in the process of failing, the regular fire alarm goes off too.

Sounds a little foolish, in a way, but it's the old "let's not panic anyone" thing, when such an event often occurs during the most stressful phases of flight (takeoff and landing).

I like that the BMW chimes for events. I know that whenever I hear that sound, something is amiss. Parking brake on, cold outside, low on fuel, going too fast, etc.

The Lexus wouldn't even chime when the low fuel light came on. You just had to notice it. I never ran out, but there were more than a few times that I easily could have had I not noticed it.

[scollins]

Well, I just had the "parking brake malfunction!" light come on, while the brake was engaged! I had to release it manually, so now I don't have any parking brake at all. I'm just under 10,000 miles. We don't use the auto-hold feature, but we do set the brake every time we park....

The bummer is, I just got it back from the dealer on Thursday afternoon (hitch install, oil change and an open campaign to replace a charge air temperature sensor.) I don't think the malfunction is related to the hitch install, but who knows....

Back to the dealer I guess.....


Oh, and I learned that the clowns at the dealer where I bought it (different dealer than the hitch installer) didn't get our BMW Assist activated, so I've got to get that taken care of too.

[Lowell_B]

i just got a brake malfunction JUST NOW. i guess i wont be going to work today or i will try but what's this thing i hear about a brake cable? That i can use it to manually release the brakes? Can anyone please tell me where this cable is located? I have a 2007 X5 3.0si. Thanks in advance

Oh and also let me also add that its 30-35 degrees Fahrenheit right now and i tried leavin around 6am in the morning. Damn this suckssssss. .i just came back from the dealer shit too about a week ago for a brake light malfunction.

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EDIT: okay i found the manual release..i thought it was a cable more like a hole n key kind of thing. But anyways i did it and it STILL DOES NOT work. It keeps saying "Transmission Park Malfunction" oh man. OH MAN and yeah the dealership is not open yet either.
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EDIT: okay well i found the brake cable to release the hand brakes. so right now my car is at the dealership gettin serviced.

[Weasel]

What you just did is the transmission park release, that has nothing to do with the emergency brake unfortunately.

[scollins]

Originally Posted by Weasel

What you just did is the transmission park release, that has nothing to do with the emergency brake unfortunately.

Who are you responding to?

The transmission park manual release is under the front left cup holder, the parking brake manual release is in the back behind the driver's side cover.

Oddly enough, my parking brake reset itself back to normal function after the manual release, and it hasn't malfunctioned since. Lucky I guess....

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by scollins

Who are you responding to?

Lowell_B I assume.

[blondboinsd]

Question on Autohold. I see on certain X5's a button for Autohold next to the parking brake but mine doesn't have that. Did they add Autohold for 2008 or does mine simply not have a way to switch it off?

[apw2607]

My auto hold feature has never worked correctly since I got the car. Nearly 2 years ago. It's being back at the dealers endless times for them to fix it. They are aware of some low level error codes that have being logged due to auto hold not working correctly but even after 2 years don't know how to fix the issue.

My problem is simply that once auto hold is switched on and the car is being held by autohold. It will randomly switch itself off and default back to regular park mode without me touching anything or moving off the seat (safety feature).

It's annoying because sometimes you don't realize and apply the gas to move off and of course you can't because auto hold is now off and the normal park break is applied.

The dealer raised a puma case and got the regional BMW rep to look at it but they don't seem to care about it. Pretty lame really.

[AzNMpower32]

It's not just BMW that's moving to electronic handbrakes, rather all German makes. Audi and Opel (yes, in the Buick Regal) have shifted to it as well. Along with electronic shifters, the electric park brake saves dash space for bigger cupholders, so say the automakers.

I still would prefer a manual handbrake. It's one less thing to manually release when the battery dies, and one less thing to break.