Electric handbrake

[wimorrison]

Easy to see the people who try to drive without a seatbelt in cars with an EPB - the front of the car dips down and they get annoyed it won't go anywhere.

Plug the seatbelt in and magically the car moves off without any drama

[Marty Dolomite]

Not all EPB's are auto release.

[Bulleidboy]

I picked up a 60 Plate XC70 on Monday from a Main Dealer (one careful lady owner - honestly) with 55K on the clock. Today, having covered about one hundred miles since pick-up, the EPB locked on in the local supermarket car park, and would not release manually or by putting the car in D or R and I did have my seat belt on. The car comes with one years full warrantly at any dealership, and also Volvo Assist. VA were very helpful today, but I still had to wait about two hours for assistance - when would you believe the EPB released. There is still a message saying "EPB Repair Service". I'll get it into the local dealership tomorrow - but is this a problem that is going to be ongoing or once fixed can I forget it - till next time?

[green van man]

That sort of depends on why it locked on.
In near 3 years I have found mine to be reliable though I usually release it manually and sometimes have to press the brake pedal before it will do so. I am not sure how the drive through function works in truth and after 46 years of driving prefer the old way of releasing it myself when ready even if it is via a button rather than a lever.
I am sure once the cause of the fault is rectified it will be as reliable as mine, finding and rectifying the fault may be the costly big as there is bound to be an ECU somewhere in the system.

Paul.

[Mugglebeard]

From my experience using auto-release quickly wears the brakes out.

[canis]

I've never driven a car with electronic brakes. But I am dreading the day when these cars fall into my price range. The idea absolutely terrifies me.

Brakes are just something I don't want a "computer says no" situation to ever occur. *I* am the driver, not the ECU, and if I want to apply my brakes I bloody well will do.

This also applies to ABS, which I still hate, still terrifies me and I still have NOT got used to. Fortunately I very rarely find myself driving faster than I can stop, but that's just my driving style. However on occasion it has happend; Turned a bend on an unfamiliar road, sharp decent, wet leaves, stationary car at the bottom turning right. And the car won't let me use the brakes in the manner which I have learned to do over thousands (hundreds of thousands) of miles, the way I was taught by my instructor, the way they tested me to make sure I could do it properly before they let me drive a car at all.

No, this is dangerous. Taking power away from the driver is outrageously dangerous in my honest opinion. I know Volvo have a fabulous safety record, it's one of the reassurances I like best, but to arrogantly have a computer tell me it's too dangerous to apply the brakes - that's not safe, that's recklessness.

As for trying to stop on sand or ice - ABS is a potential killer.

No. I do not want an electronic handbrake, and it would make me not want to buy one. A shame, because we'd love an XC90 (I think it was we saw and lusted after in ASDA car park one day) - but this is a "feature" which must die.

Just my opinion.

[wimorrison]

These are NOT electronic handbrakes, they are electro-mechanical, simply replacing the handbrake lever which operates extremely effectively.

The switch activates a servo motor that winds a screw that applies the handbrake using the same brake pads that are hydraulically applied when you press the footbrake.

ABS, traction control, etc operate in exactly the same manner as they did before the introduction of the Electric Parking Brake (EPB)

[Grimble]

Tend to agree with Canis, I hate anything in the car that takes away my control or nags me into an action that I will decide to do or not, not some idiot software coder.
Personally hate the electric handbrake but have no choice. Switch is in a stupid position (applies to both V70 and XC60) in my opinion.
My V70 (58 plate) brakes locked on in a car park (luckily) due to failure of an electronic black box, which also controlled a number of other functions. Luckily once released by the AA the car was drivable to the specialist. His diagnosis was (apart from the FoMoCo logo on the module - cheap crap) that the module had to be replaced at great expense as one from a scrappy wouldn't work due to it being 'coded' to the car upon first installation. New box fitted and no trouble afterwards. A manual parking brake would have cost nothing in comparison as they are much more reliable. Not progress in my book.
Regarding break wear, I had the V70 for over 100k miles, it had 70k miles when I bought it. Always used the auto-unlock feature (partly due to the aforementioned stupid location of the switch) and replaced discs and pads only once in all that time. So if it does cause premature wear it can't be that much.

[green van man]

Since the removal of asbestos from brake pads I have found its new disks every second set of pads anyway, wether drive through is used or not. There is not enough meat on the disks to last a 3rd set of pads. It's the outrageous cost of Volvo disks that I find annoyin. It will be Volvo pads with mintex disks going on mine when they are needed.

Paul.

[Grimble]

Originally Posted by green van man

Since the removal of asbestos from brake pads I have found its new disks every second set of pads anyway, wether drive through is used or not. There is not enough meat on the disks to last a 3rd set of pads. It's the outrageous cost of Volvo disks that I find annoyin. It will be Volvo pads with mintex disks going on mine when they are needed.

Paul.

Dead right. Used Volvo pads as I'd heard too many horror stories about squealing (actually not that pricey), but bought the cheapest discs off the net I could find. Not a minutes bother.