Mark: Hi, Mark Bossert here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada, and we're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: Today's guest is a 2020 Ford F250 parking brake issue. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: Yeah, so the owner's complaint was that he pushed the parking brake pedal down and it wouldn't hold the vehicle. Parking brake just basically wasn't working.
Mark: So I'm sure for any of us that have been driving vehicles for a long time, a longer time, we've had this kind of issue before. Is this a common issue with this vehicle?
Bernie: Not necessarily with this vehicle, but I mean, certain vehicles a parking brake will eventually not work. Sometimes people never use their parking brake, so they don't even know whether it works or not. But I have noticed, we do this vehicle check-in procedure that we've been doing for about a year, and I noticed when I come out to the vehicle and I have a look at it, I notice about maybe 30% of people actually put their parking brake on. Or some vehicles parking brakes activate automatically too.
But the saying, if you don't use it, you'll lose it. So with parking brakes, it's good to use it even if you live in the flat, the prairies and you never really need a parking brake, you have an automatic, use it once in a while, because it's good to keep it exercised.
Mark: Let's have a look at our guest. Hello sir. 2020 F250. Looks in pretty good shape. What kind of mileage?
Bernie: Yeah, it's great shape. It's only had about 70,000 kilometres on it, so pretty young truck in good shape. Not bush used or anything like that. It's nice and clean underneath.
Mark: So isn't that a bit surprising that the parking brake is having issues?
Bernie: It was surprising and we pondered that you know, with the owner and go, what do you think happened? Because what we found at the end of the day. Was that the parking brake shoes on one side, the shoe material, friction material had basically disintegrated, wasn't even there. It just basically wore off somehow.
Mark: This looks like bare metal.
Bernie: That is bare metal. That is the backing plate of the brake shoe.
Mark: There should be a layer of brake material on top of that.
Bernie: Yeah. There's supposed to be, and it's usually about three sixteenths of an inch thick of, for people think metric, I dunno, what are we thinking? Like three, four millimetres thick, something like that. When it's brand new. I unfortunately wasn't able to take a picture of the proper new brake shoes when we installed them, but just imagine that being a lot thicker.
So, you know, part of our diagnostic procedure to get at this parking brake, it involves taking the brake caliper off. It's a bit of an ordeal. So the first thing we test is, are the cables working? Are they broken? Are they adjusted properly? And we tested the cables, which we can see from the outside. They're all moving fine. So then we proceeded to take the brakes apart, and that's what we found. And it was only on one side, surprisingly. The other side was in perfect shape.
Mark: Any thoughts as to why that would occur?
Bernie: We don't know. We said to the owner, Hey, you know, maybe you drove it and left the parking brake on. He said, well, I don't think I could do that because it goes bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. You know, it warns you if the parking brake's on. So, you know, we really don't know why it came apart. It's sort of hard to know, but sometimes weird things happen on cars and beyond explanation.
Mark: Or a manufacturing defect of some kind.
Bernie: Exactly. Yeah.
Mark: And so this is the inside of the wheel, on one of the back wheels.
Bernie: Yeah. So this is the actual rear brake rotor, which is also the parking brake drum. And so the arrow is pointing basically to the surface where the shoe would run, but you can see an awful lot of rust in there. And I mean, most of that rust is where the shoes would've contacted, but they didn't because they basically nonexistent. So it just rusted up. The surface above that and outside of that, is where the brake pads run. So that's where your sort of regular brakes operate.
Mark: So where it's shiny, where the arrow's pointing to is where the brake pads push against the drum. The interior of that, so towards where the holes are, where we mount the wheel on the hub. Yeah. There's no contact happening there, so it just looks rusted.
Bernie: Yeah. Well actually no, down near the holes where it mounts, that's okay that it's rusty down there because the very bottom, because there's nothing that happens there. But below the arrow, the shoes contact down there too. And above it too, where there's a rust on the edge.
So the repair was basically new parking brake shoes. We do both sides, everything gets done in pairs. Parking brake shoes, both sides. New hardware, which is hardware are the springs. And we changed the levers as well. This is mechanically operated, so there's a lever that goes between the two shoes. We replace those as well. And adjusted them all up and replaced that drum slash brake rotor. So all new clean.
Mark: And it parks just fine.
Bernie: Yeah. Put the parking brake on it go. It goes down a long ways, but it grips fine. The vehicle won't move when you accelerate forward or backwards. So it's all good.
Mark: So there you go. If you're looking for service for your F250 in Vancouver, the people to see are Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online, pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there, or you can call them at (604) 327-7112 to book your appointment. You have to call and book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark, and thanks for watching.
