I picked up my NBP TLS on Friday 9/21 and absolutely love it. It is really hard to drive the car slow during the 600 mile break-in. I have a question regarding driving with the emergency brake on. Yes, you heard right. I let my wife drive the car (with 88 miles on the odometer) and she went about 5 miles at 40-50 mph with the emergency brake on!!! Needless to say, when she told me the light was on and we stopped, I was livid! The brakes were hot and smoking a little, they weren't red hot. I drove the car slowly after wards (brake off) for about 10 minutes and didn't set the brake for some time so the rotors could cool down some. My question is what are the chance the pads glazed over or that there was damage done? This really sucks, but it is done now. The brakes seem to be OK, but having only 88 miles on the car and baby-ing it for those 88 miles, I really don't know how the brakes stopped the car quickly.

Concerned new owner

BTW, the car is awsome!

 

I believe the parking brake only locks the two back calipers, not he front. I'd take it in to the dealer just in case (esp. if the brakes were smoking ) and let them check out the brake system.

 

All I can say is AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Anyway, its a good thing its your wife and she deserves your forgiveness. remember, if you have been married for a while, you will need her forgiveness far more often than she wiill need yours.

BTW, did she somehow blame you for this, like the time my wife took off the right power mirror to my Accord, against the garage frame and blamed me as I drove the Accord last and parked it too close to the wall.

 

Sounds familiar I had my CBR parked in the drive way running and she hopped in the explorer and backed into it... my fault for parking the bike anywhere in the driveway

 

I think someone said that the parking brake has dedicated drums in the back. (They would have to be on the inside of your rear rotors.) If thats true, then leaving your parking brake on should not have an effect on your regular brakes. But then again this is just heresay.

 

Ouch! Does she know there's a brake in the car? No offense here, but I just can't imagine someone driving a car that long without noticing the brake is still on.

 

Well, We have been married for 11 years. I forgive her. She wasn't used to the car, esp. the floor mounted parking brake. She did say, as we were going down the driveway "the car doesn't seem to go" I wrote it off as a new car she wasn't used to. That was her trying to blame me for it..she says " I tried to tell you something seemed wrong."

It would be nice if Acura made the brake automagically release in any drive gear though. The sun was shining on the gauges, so she couldn't easily see the bright RED "BRAKE" warning light on the gauge.

I'll have to check into wether the parking brake uses a separate mechanism, I assumed it would hold the main rear calipers though, as most other Honda products do.

 

Well, sorry to hear about your brake snafu... but I'd still like to congratulate you on your new car purchase! Mine's coming soon! (and no one else gets to drive it )

V.

 

I don't know the damage it would do later on, but when I had my Bimmer broken in the same thing happened to me. My wife drove it with the parking brakes and I was furious. I forgave her.......All was good until about 5k miles when my brakes had made some weird noises. I took it to the dealer and they said my rotors had heat deformation and I had to get them replaced. I asked what could have caused this and they said improper brake in. I wasn't sure, but he said at that low of a mile with that problem, yes.

 

It's not that big of a deal, actually. The parking brake is a "drum-in-disc" setup. When you use the brake pedal, it acts upon the 4 calipers which act upon the rotors. When you set the parking brake, it uses the drum brake that's inside the rear rotor hat, so if you drive with the e-brake on you're not actually wearing the disc brake pads, but rather the drum brake shoes.

As far as the rotor getting hot, you did the right thing by driving easily for a while and letting it cool on its own.

 

Is there anywhere I can go to see a diagram of this setup or learn more about it? I can't envision the drum-in-disc e-brake. I understand how the claiper works in disc brakes, and thought most e-brake setups on rear discs were a cable which pushed against the main pad onto the rotor. Thanks for the info!

 

RAdams is right. There are a couple of parking brake shoes inside each parking brake drum (rear). See the Helm Service Manual p. 19-24+ for details.

 

Try this link:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/drum-brake1.htm

Now, rather than having a large drum at the rear wheels, imagine a smaller one INSIDE the rear brake rotor. The inner surface of the rotor hat is the "drum" on our cars.

Hope this helps... it's the best explanation I could find online in a short time.

 

Here's a pic of the drum-in-disc design for the MDX; I would assume the design in similar to our cars.

 

Thanks for the pic IntegraVT! Like they say a picture is worth 1000 words. I get it now. I was trying to somehow envision a drum setup inside the caliper, not the rotor itself and couldn't figure out how it could stop the wheels from turning. Seems like a really complicated setup for a parking brake. Thanks for the information.

 

Is it because of this that most cars have solid rear rotors?

 

Actually, the two don't have anything to do with each other. You could just as easily have a drum-in-disc setup with a vented rotor as well. Whether a rotor is solid or vented can be seen by looking at the "thickness" of it. Vented rotors look like a sandwich... there's room for cooling air between the two "halves" while solid rotors are just one piece.

A lot of cars have solid rear rotors as the front brakes do the majority of the work and, therefore, create the majority of the heat while the rears do less work and, therefore, create less heat to be dissipated.

 

What advantages does the drum in disc set up have besides less wear on the main rear pads? It seems like a pretty complicated design for just the e brake. Anyone know other manufacturers using this system?