I'll start by saying I don't recommend this to anyone but it's something kind of funny I discovered by accident.

My e-brake has always been pretty weak. I swapped rear rotors to Rotoras and it felt just as weak which I expected.

As of now, my front pads are down below 1mm and I'm not really driving the car. The new H6 pads are on the way but won't be here till Monday.

Today I felt like getting some food so I drove the TL roughly 5 miles round trip. With the price of replacement 13" drilled rotors, I didn't want to take a chance of going metal to metal so I used the e-brake for most of the stopping. When there were cars behind me I lightly pressed the normal brakes so they would see brake lights.

In the beginning it would not come close to locking the rear tires and I had to pull pretty hard to get any stopping. I decided to get gas and the whole time I was pumping gas I could smell the hot e-brake pads. I'm not real concerned because I'm replacing the rear pads soon so I can do the e-brake shoes at the same time.

I drove another couple miles to get food. I noticed the e-brake was biting better and better. By the time I got home I barely had to pull on the lever to get good braking. I even pulled kind of hard doing 5mph and it easily locked the rear tires.

This whole thing is kind of pointless other than I cured the factory weak e-brake by accident doing something I should not have been doing. I guess even e-brakes have a break-in and after 94,000 miles had never been broken in since it's only been applied with the car stationary like it's designed for.

So for anyone complaining about an e-brake not holding like it should and the cable is adjusted properly, a few light stops with the car moving should do the trick.

 

That's actually a pretty good idea! Just like breaking in new pads. Removes any glaze or oils and transfers a layer of friction material onto the bare iron face of the drum/rotor...

 

Just don't do it more than a few times...you'll go right through the padding of the shoe. It's only a couple mm thick.

 

Actually if you read the FSM it states the following for Parking Brake Shoe Break-In after shoe replacement:
Keep the parking brake lever release button pushed in with a piece of tape.
Drive the vehicle 25mph.
Pull the parking brake lever up with 22lbf of force while you are driving the vehicle for 1/4 mile.
Pull the parking brake lever up with 33lbf of force while you are driving the vehicle for 10 seconds.
Stop the vehicle and release the parking brake lever for 5-10 minutes to allow the rear brake disc/drum to cool.
Check the parking brake lever adjustment.

FYI, the lining is only 3.2mm thick @ 1/8".

 

That's common starting thickness for drum brake shoes. My CRX and Civic are the same, with a minimum thickness of 1mm. It takes about 100k miles to reach that...

 

Wow, I guess I did the proper break-in by accident. Makes a huge difference.

Looking at the break-in procedure, I was probably more gentle. I would pull it up fairly hard and scrub off some speed, let it rest for a few seconds and bring it down to 10mph where I applied the regular brakes.

It got extremely hot though. I wish I had my IR thermometer with me. I cooked some of the Rotora paint from the drums which has never cooked with track use before lol.

 

It may be the cheap route for the Honda's as the Grand Cherokee's e brakes are the thickness of regular rear drum brake shoes and the Grands are only about 200-700 lbs heavier than the TL.


Many years ago before the introduction of all the electronic control systems a helpful way to help control a skid in a FWD vehicle was to pull up on the e brake to drag the rear back into postion. Worked well, but needed some practice to master.

 

I've done a brief half second bump of the e-brake to stop the car from understeering but now it's pretty well balanced where I haven't had to do it in a couple years.

After seeing how quickly the brake fades (could have been green fade) if you really had to use it from 70mph for a real stop, you would almost have to apply it and as soon as you notice it get weak, lock the tires to continue stopping. Mine faded completely very quickly once the initial fade started.

Now that it's broken in I may try again just to see if it fades at the same point or if it can take a little more heat now.

I was used to my GN where the e-brake uses the regular drum brakes to stop. Those poor things have held my car at 28psi off the start with soft brake shoes, e-brake on and regular brakes to the floor. I actually crumpled the backing plate during a launch which I did not know was possible. Tore the shoes and piston out.