What's the current practice regarding a electric hand brake when taking your test.

[TW]Fox said:
Actually the electric handbrake stopping working on an E60 is an incredibly uncommon occurrence. Infact I doubt its ever happened anywhere in the world..
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Electrical faults in general are rife, and they're only going to get worse. A manual handbrake wouldn't fix this.
 
Nasher said:
Weirdly unless it's a torque converter gearbox, paddle shift is still considered a manual for licencing I think.
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No it isn't. If there's no clutch pedal, it's regarded as an automatic (or semi-automatic, if you have to use a shifter to select the gears yourself).
 
crinkleshoes said:
No, most aren't.
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Seriously?!

[TW]Fox said:
Because an electric handbrake is either on, or off. Whereas you can slowly release a manually operated handbrake so you don't go from a situation where 100% of the car is being held by the handbrake to 0% of the car instantly.

To combat this virtually all cars with an electronic handbrake have some form of hill hold assist, where the brakes remain applied for several seconds after release until you accelerate, or an auto releasing handbrake. For cars like this, operation is simple, easy and hassle free.

Some cars, however, do not - I'm looking at you, 4 cylinder BMW Z4's. These have an electronic handbrake, no auto release and no hill hold assist. Doing a hill start is quite tricky until you get used to it and even then is more faffy than it really it should be...
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I've wondered about this before - specifically hill starts, which were a test requirement when I took mine. Do you still have to do this as, with an electric handbrake, the car does it for you so you can't be 'tested'.

Same goes for other aids such as parking sensors - isn't that effectively 'cheating'?
 
Vertigo1 said:
Seriously?!



I've wondered about this before - specifically hill starts, which were a test requirement when I took mine. Do you still have to do this as, with an electric handbrake, the car does it for you so you can't be 'tested'.

Same goes for other aids such as parking sensors - isn't that effectively 'cheating'?
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Did you have to pump the brakes for your emergency stop test, or did the car cheat and do it for you. My car even has anti stall and stall recovery so it's even easier now, should you stall you just press the clutch and it starts again.
 
Every car implements electronic hand brakes differently.

My manual Qashqai is auto removal on pull away with hill hold assist (hills over a certain gradient only). Hill Hold in the Qashqai requires your foot on the brake. When you release it automatically applies the foot brake for a further 2 seconds to let you find the bite and pull away.

I have to manually apply the handbrake if I want it on. The only time it self applies is when I turn the engine/ignition off.

The most important feature IMO is automatic removal. Gives you all the time in the world.

BMW 2 series I also drive don't have auto removal and they are foul to drive as a result. 3 point turn on a big gradient without auto removal is trash.
 
robj20 said:
Did you have to pump the brakes for your emergency stop test, or did the car cheat and do it for you.
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Well firstly no, the car in which I took my test did not have ABS, smart-alec :p

Secondly, you shouldn't be cadence braking during an emergency stop anyway - the idea was to apply as much pressure as possible to the pedal without locking up.
 
You don't cadence brake a non ABS car for a straight line emergency stop. You should be threshold braking. If the wheels lock so be it. ABS and cadence braking don't decrease stopping distances, they let you steer.

Release brake pressure when locked to enable steering, not to stop faster.
 
My Mondeo has an electric handbrake and it isn't auto but, as long I I get to the bite point i.e. the car feels it wanting to drive off, I can release the handbrake without pressing the footbrake.
 
If it doesn't auto release, you might as well have a proper hand brake. At least it won't go wrong and isn't a pain when you need to change the brakes.
 
Nasher said:
If it doesn't auto release, you might as well have a proper hand brake. At least it won't go wrong and isn't a pain when you need to change the brakes.
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To be honest there isn't much to go wrong and the brake change is fine. I've had less trouble with electric handbrakes than I have with a conventional one.
 
[TW]Fox said:
To be honest there isn't much to go wrong and the brake change is fine. I've had less trouble with electric handbrakes than I have with a conventional one.
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Just seems weird that they don't all have an auto-release feature as it's one of the main things an electric handbrake facilitates.

Is auto-release that hard to do? I remember talking to someone a few years back who cursed the one on his Vectra as he said it never released smoothly and he had to strain against it a bit before it would release so he ended up releasing manually himself.
 
ethan said:
Previously you would just apply the mechanical handbrake and release once you found the bite on the clutch. With the electoral trick hand brake you always get a message on the console telling you to press the foot break first once you release the electric brake. Problem is it does t give you any time to find the bite on the clutch to prevent roll back.
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You managed to spell the word correctly, twice, before this let you down. And that is why you should never be allowed a licence.
 
Sin_Chase said:
Every car implements electronic hand brakes differently.

My manual Qashqai is auto removal on pull away with hill hold assist (hills over a certain gradient only). Hill Hold in the Qashqai requires your foot on the brake. When you release it automatically applies the foot brake for a further 2 seconds to let you find the bite and pull away.

I have to manually apply the handbrake if I want it on. The only time it self applies is when I turn the engine/ignition off.

The most important feature IMO is automatic removal. Gives you all the time in the world.
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3008SUV has the same, it seems to be standard - they probably both use the Bosch engine/car management system.
 
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