OT Daily Drive E-Brake

My Emergency brake on my Daily Driver 95 Escort Wagon was not holding
the car and needed some adjustment. Car is a 5 Speed, so I need it to
warm the car up because my driveway has a very minimal incline. I take
the car to Meineke Muffler & Brake Shop to have the adjustment made.
The car has over 100K on it, so they said that the cables needed to be
replaced. For some reason they said this car uses Three cables. I go
to get it fixed, and they said that I need back brake pads or the e
brake probably won't work because they are pretty worn. It had been a
long time since I replace the back brakes, so I went ahead and got that
done too.

Got the car back and it worked for a couple of weeks, and it started to
roll back in the driveway again with the e-brake fully on. I took it
back to Meineke, and they said that you are not suppoed to use the
e-brake to hold a car on a hill. They tried to claim that my driveway
was practically a 90 degree angle even though one of the techs drove by
my house to look at it and saw that it was not much of a hill. They
said that Ford says that you are supposed to use reverse as your e
brake, and not use the actual emergency brake to hold the car. They
said that by using it to hold the car in the driveway that I am at
fault and must have stretched the new cables and ruined, so tough luck.
I told them I wanted at least a partial refund because I came to them
and paid hard earned money to get a problem fixed and I still have the
same problem. They said a big NO on that. They told me that I should
take it to Ford (and pay myself) and have them look at it and see if
anything was done improperly. They also said that this problem must be
a defect on this particular car, and it is not their fault. I e mailed
Meineke Corporate, and got a response back that was expected which was
NONE. It is not a big enough amount of money to incur the expense of
suing over and I can't really take off work to go to small claims
court, but the arrogance of this organization aggravating. I won't be
going back there again. I guess I should go to the Ford dealer next
time I need work done instead of trusting these non customer friendly
places to fix my car properly.

"Bill Berckman" > wrote in message
oups.com...

> [...] They
> said that Ford says that you are supposed to use reverse as your e
> brake, and not use the actual emergency brake to hold the car.

That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.

"jjs" > wrote in message
...
> "Bill Berckman" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>
> > [...] They
> > said that Ford says that you are supposed to use reverse as your e
> > brake, and not use the actual emergency brake to hold the car.
>
> That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.
>
>

its WRONG John....read *any* owners manual it has been called a "PARKING"
brake for the past couple decades at least....Bill got HOSED by a chain that
is notorious for hosing people....if your brakes will hold the car your
parking brake should also...

About the same symptoms occurred on my 82 Honda Civic. It too has three
cables. One from the brake handle and one each to the rear wheels. The
handle operates a pivot mechanism at the rear axle. On my car, the pivot
mechanism was partially rusted so only one rear brake would operate. The
pivot mechanism came of with the removal of a cotter pin. I cleaned the
rust off and greased everything and now it works fine.

I don't particularly like working on cars but too often I had run into the
dog and pony show that Meineke gave you. That is why I own simple cars so I
can avoid the "professionals."


"Bill Berckman" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> My Emergency brake on my Daily Driver 95 Escort Wagon was not holding
> the car and needed some adjustment. Car is a 5 Speed, so I need it to
> warm the car up because my driveway has a very minimal incline. I take
> the car to Meineke Muffler & Brake Shop to have the adjustment made.
> The car has over 100K on it, so they said that the cables needed to be
> replaced. For some reason they said this car uses Three cables. I go
> to get it fixed, and they said that I need back brake pads or the e
> brake probably won't work because they are pretty worn. It had been a
> long time since I replace the back brakes, so I went ahead and got that
> done too.
>
> Got the car back and it worked for a couple of weeks, and it started to
> roll back in the driveway again with the e-brake fully on. I took it
> back to Meineke, and they said that you are not suppoed to use the
> e-brake to hold a car on a hill. They tried to claim that my driveway
> was practically a 90 degree angle even though one of the techs drove by
> my house to look at it and saw that it was not much of a hill. They
> said that Ford says that you are supposed to use reverse as your e
> brake, and not use the actual emergency brake to hold the car. They
> said that by using it to hold the car in the driveway that I am at
> fault and must have stretched the new cables and ruined, so tough luck.
> I told them I wanted at least a partial refund because I came to them
> and paid hard earned money to get a problem fixed and I still have the
> same problem. They said a big NO on that. They told me that I should
> take it to Ford (and pay myself) and have them look at it and see if
> anything was done improperly. They also said that this problem must be
> a defect on this particular car, and it is not their fault. I e mailed
> Meineke Corporate, and got a response back that was expected which was
> NONE. It is not a big enough amount of money to incur the expense of
> suing over and I can't really take off work to go to small claims
> court, but the arrogance of this organization aggravating. I won't be
> going back there again. I guess I should go to the Ford dealer next
> time I need work done instead of trusting these non customer friendly
> places to fix my car properly.
>



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What's weird is that you see Meineke advertised often on TV, but it appears they do not have any locations in Michigan.
For brakes I think you're best off with just a regular mechanic. For exhausts, find a good NON-CHAIN shop. I use a
local place near me that's called "Old Castle Muffler" and trust me, it may be old but a Castle it is not! However,
these grimy guys own the shop and they want repeat business so they have always done me right. It's a shame that the
Tuffy's, Midas, Meineke, Muffler Mans and all the rest have such a hold on the muffler market. They compete on price at
the sacrifice of decent parts and decent work.
"Joey Tribiani" > wrote in message news:KFT3e.99491$755.59834@lakeread05...
>
> "jjs" > wrote in message
> ...
> > "Bill Berckman" > wrote in message
> > oups.com...
> >
> > > [...] They
> > > said that Ford says that you are supposed to use reverse as your e
> > > brake, and not use the actual emergency brake to hold the car.
> >
> > That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.
> >
> >
>
> its WRONG John....read *any* owners manual it has been called a "PARKING"
> brake for the past couple decades at least....Bill got HOSED by a chain that
> is notorious for hosing people....if your brakes will hold the car your
> parking brake should also...
>
>

"Joey Tribiani" > wrote in message
news:KFT3e.99491$755.59834@lakeread05...

>> That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.

> its WRONG John....read *any* owners manual it has been called a "PARKING"
> brake for the past couple decades at least....

So what. You aren't supposed to use the PARKING break for parking. (And he
called it the E-Brake, right?)

On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 10:28:50 -0500, "jjs" > wrote:

>"Joey Tribiani" > wrote in message
>news:KFT3e.99491$755.59834@lakeread05...
>
>>> That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.
>
>> its WRONG John....read *any* owners manual it has been called a "PARKING"
>> brake for the past couple decades at least....
>
>So what. You aren't supposed to use the PARKING break for parking. (And he
>called it the E-Brake, right?)
>

What the fark do you use it for, then? By the way, you misspelled
"brake."


---
"There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."
- Inspector Harry Callahan

On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 09:39:55 -0500, "jjs" > wrote:

>"Bill Berckman" > wrote in message
roups.com...
>
>> [...] They
>> said that Ford says that you are supposed to use reverse as your e
>> brake, and not use the actual emergency brake to hold the car.
>
>That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.
>

Bull****.


---
"There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."
- Inspector Harry Callahan

"Bill Berckman" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> My Emergency brake on my Daily Driver 95 Escort Wagon was not holding
> the car and needed some adjustment.............snip
>
>

.............I replaced the three part cable assembly on my Nissan 4x4 truck
last year. One of them was frozen up inside the sheath and because of its
age I decided to replace everything. The Nissan dealer nailed me for over
$200 for the parts. I really needed that 'parking' brake on the ramp when
launching or hauling out my 16' boat from its trailer. One thing that threw
me for a loop is that I had to readjust the tightness of the cables in the
two spots where the slack can be removed at about a month after the
installation. I think that there must be a little stretch that new cables
have after their installed. It's been perfectly OK now since last fall and I
no longer have to worry about it rolling into the water when I'm winching my
boat out of the water on to its trailer.

"jjs" > wrote in message
...
> "Joey Tribiani" > wrote in message
> news:KFT3e.99491$755.59834@lakeread05...
>
> >> That's true, Bill. That's why they call it an emergency brake.
>
> > its WRONG John....read *any* owners manual it has been called a
"PARKING"
> > brake for the past couple decades at least....
>
> So what. You aren't supposed to use the PARKING break for parking.

yeah and the "park" position on an automatic trans is for going backwards
too...


> (And he
> called it the E-Brake, right?)
>

yes he did...and from what i gather that is what he was told it was for, not
for parking...hence my post...it wasn't exactly directed to you as much as
to bill....they are hosing him and he and everyone here sees that....