Earlier in the year I bought a Golf which has an electric handbrake. Over the ensuing months I have been struck by how monumentally terrible it is! Rather than just moan about it, I thought I'd detail exactly why it is a bad idea that should never have left the drawing board.
1: More complex and therefore more costly and less reliable. Several mechanics have told me that they F-up all the time which is hardly surprising, with both electrical and mechanical parts there is more to go wrong and it's less simple to fix. With a simple cable handbrake you can work on it fully independent on the car's electrical system. Which leads onto...
2: Needs electrical power to work. From dropping off the handbrake to push the car a few feet in the garden to full on breakdowns, you now cannot release the handbrake without power.
3: Loss of control. With a cable handbrake you have total control over when the brake is applied, for how long, how hard it is applied and when it is released. With the electric brake control is relinquished to the computer when will operate the brake when it thinks it should, which may or may not coincide with your thoughts on the matter! Certain circumstances will cause the robot brain to decide that no, it's not going to let the brake off. For example if your seatbelt is not fastened. This leads to a lack of confidence in the brake being released at best and total guessing game at worst which is compounded by....
4: The lack of feedback. With a cable handbrake you don't need to look down. You know where the lever is without looking, you reach to it and feel if the brake is on, off or anywhere in between. At all times your eyes are free to concentrate on the more important job of looking at what is happening out of the window.
The switch for the electric brake returns to the same resting position irrespective of the condition of the brake itself and offers no tactile feedback on the brake. The result is that it needs a light to indicate the state of the brake and it's impossible to know whether the brake is on or off without looking at it. But even when it's working exactly as it is supposed to it will still muck your life up because...
5: It's too slow. With a cable brake you can release the brake in an instant and at exactly the right time to coincide with whatever else you're doing. A good example being hill starts or grabbing the brake for a second in stop-start traffic on a hill. I've stalled the car several times on hill starts because the electric brake takes too long to disengage. You have to hold the biting point for longer than is necessary to give the brake time to get out of the way and grabbing the brake for a second is impossible.
All of these things conspire to undo years of practice and turn something we have all done subconsciously into an action we need to think about. It is worse in every way and offers no advantages in compensation. I hate electric handbrakes, they certainly have no place in a car that pretends to be sporty, and when it comes time for a new car, what kind of handbrake it has will be a consideration.
Rant over ;0)
1: More complex and therefore more costly and less reliable. Several mechanics have told me that they F-up all the time which is hardly surprising, with both electrical and mechanical parts there is more to go wrong and it's less simple to fix. With a simple cable handbrake you can work on it fully independent on the car's electrical system. Which leads onto...
2: Needs electrical power to work. From dropping off the handbrake to push the car a few feet in the garden to full on breakdowns, you now cannot release the handbrake without power.
3: Loss of control. With a cable handbrake you have total control over when the brake is applied, for how long, how hard it is applied and when it is released. With the electric brake control is relinquished to the computer when will operate the brake when it thinks it should, which may or may not coincide with your thoughts on the matter! Certain circumstances will cause the robot brain to decide that no, it's not going to let the brake off. For example if your seatbelt is not fastened. This leads to a lack of confidence in the brake being released at best and total guessing game at worst which is compounded by....
4: The lack of feedback. With a cable handbrake you don't need to look down. You know where the lever is without looking, you reach to it and feel if the brake is on, off or anywhere in between. At all times your eyes are free to concentrate on the more important job of looking at what is happening out of the window.
The switch for the electric brake returns to the same resting position irrespective of the condition of the brake itself and offers no tactile feedback on the brake. The result is that it needs a light to indicate the state of the brake and it's impossible to know whether the brake is on or off without looking at it. But even when it's working exactly as it is supposed to it will still muck your life up because...
5: It's too slow. With a cable brake you can release the brake in an instant and at exactly the right time to coincide with whatever else you're doing. A good example being hill starts or grabbing the brake for a second in stop-start traffic on a hill. I've stalled the car several times on hill starts because the electric brake takes too long to disengage. You have to hold the biting point for longer than is necessary to give the brake time to get out of the way and grabbing the brake for a second is impossible.
All of these things conspire to undo years of practice and turn something we have all done subconsciously into an action we need to think about. It is worse in every way and offers no advantages in compensation. I hate electric handbrakes, they certainly have no place in a car that pretends to be sporty, and when it comes time for a new car, what kind of handbrake it has will be a consideration.
Rant over ;0)