Column Shift

Rob J. says: I drive a small car with a manual transmission. I always park it in gear (1st or Reverse) with the parking brake off. I do this because I’ve suffered from parking brake cables rusting stiff so they won’t release. I also fear that in the winter, water or slush that may have splashed onto the calipers could freeze them in contact with the disc. My wife sometimes drives my car. She habitually parks in neutral with the parking brake applied. Do I need to get over myself, and relax, or should I ask her to comply with my habit?

On flat ground either is fine. On an incline, however, there is a right way and a wrong way to park a car with a manual transmission (stick shift). To get a mechanic’s view of the issue I spoke to Darren Daley at Daley Service down­town.

Darren tells me that the best gear to park in is reverse. He says it is the least likely gear a car can pop out of. I also spoke to him at length on the topic of the hand-brake freezing up. “That used to be a problem and there was even a class action suit against one manufactur­er,” Darren told me. However, modern designs now separate the hand-brake from the rear brakes. They used to be a part of the rear brakes. Modern ones just don’t freeze up like the older cars used to. In fact, using it keeps the mechanism lubricated. Darren went one further, explaining that when you use the parking brake, on many models it actually adjusts the brakes. So my final answer is to use the parking brake when on an incline — AND put it in reverse. On flatground it is a matter of taste.

On a car with an automatic transmission, here is how to properly use the parking brake when parking on an incline or decline. You may laugh, but I see and hear people use it incorrectly all the time.

1) Once you are stopped, while still in drive with your foot on the brake, pull the handbrake or push the parking brake pedal, whichever your car has.

2) Then shift to neutral and take your foot off the brake. The car will move slightly as the parking brake takes over from the brakes. It will seem to hunker down.

3) Shift into park and remove the key. When you return to the car:

Put your foot on the brake and start the car.

Shift into gear and only then release the park­ing brake.

If you follow these steps, the transmission will not have to hold the car in place. If the trans­mission goes “Clunk” when you start up and shift into gear, you have made a mistake. The point of the parking brake is to keep the weight of the car from resting on the transmission.

Please send a question to us at john@columnshift.com.