Sneezy

I decided to "play" in the snow today and found out that while the car is moving and you try and slide the back end using the parking brake that it doesn't work. Yank as hard as you want, GM must have installed some kind of override that won't let you do this. WTF? I yanked hard on the parking brake lever and nothing. Just stupid dinging and a dash light.

That and you can't recirculate the cabin air on defrost/defrost feet/feet. WTF? I know it's common for most cars not to allow recir on defrost (still bugs me) but the feet? Come on. I'm smart enough to know it will fog up...it's going to anyway......

They ought to pay attention to building better cars instead of engineering them to the point it pisses people off. the money they spent on those 2 things could have been applied to heated mirrors!

ChevyMgr

If you are saying that you were trying to lock the rear tires and there is a safeguard for that, there isn't. I have never tried it before in an HHR so I don't know how much stopping power the rears have with the handle. Bells and whistles of course would be normal. You might want to check to see if the park brake is really holding at all.

Good rant on the other items.

Nebulous1

Was ESC engaged? Did the DIC display any messages?

calgaryhhr

I've never actually tried the parking brake with the HHR but I tried with various rental cars (Cobalt, Impala, Malibu and Pontiac Montana) and all of them had very little effect. I don't know if it's just brake pressure, like mentioned by the manager, or if in fact there is a computer controlled lock.

GTOMIKE

Thats funny I was doing it in my 96 saturn all day made all my left turns with the parking brake.I`m 48 and I still look forward to a good snow covered county road. I can still park the car at the mall with the parking brake

ChevyMgr

Good point, the EBCM could take over on the wheel lock up. Sometimes I forget that new technology took over old technology. Park brakes are pretty much the same now as when I used to do donuts in the snow with a heavy ass rear wheel drive car packing a V8. But those cars didn't have ABS/Traction Control

Sneezy

No message and I tried it with the traction control on and off. My dad tried it in his and found the same results. The parking brake does hold when parked. Not really well but it holds.

halfpanel08

i have tried to lock up my tires before.. was going about 20mph and pulled the parkin brake.. just kinda slowed me down, dash lights and beeping.. also tried to do a burn out w/ ebrake... only made it worse. haha... poor HHRs

Nebulous1

The Traction Control System shouldn't affect it, but the Electronic Stability Control system will apply brakes individually to keep the vector in line with the steering wheel. The first press of the button disables TCS. The second press (within 10 seconds I believe) disables ECS. The DIC will show Competition Mode. Then try the handbrake turns...

hyperv6

I tried it in the first snow with the same results.

Mine would lock up but not slide our spin.

I know you can shut the ECS off but just never bothered. I still would think the light would come on if the system was kicking in but I never got a light or heard the system cycle.

My e brake will hold on a hill and is adjusted properly.