Handbrake=Auto-adjusters?

[gartroy]

Hello everybody.

I am now the happy and proud owner of a 406 after waiting for some time to get my hands on a 2.0 Hdi Rapier. As you all know, a decent 406 diesel are hard to come by but perseverance finally paid off and now I got one... its on a 52 plate and its got 140k on the clock mind you put its in excellent condition and its been looked after by the previous owner... so happy me

Anyhow, I decided to have it in for a service at our local independent garage, filter, oil, brakes etc etc and I'm now finding out that my well looked after motor wasnt... so well looked after, after-all!!!!

It needed new rear discs and pads, one rear caliper, handbrake shoes, handbrake cables, exhaust backbox and a new o/s/r back plate..... which costs £94 alone!!!!!! THIEVES We've taken all this on the chin and excepted that these things do need replacing from time to time but upon recieving the car back from the garage and handing over nearly £500 yesterday afternoon, for the cost of doing the work I found that the handbrake is still crap!! so crap that you have to pull the lever RIGHT THE WAY UP, (its 14 clicks infact) to prevent the car from rolling away!

I went back to the garage this morning and said I wasnt happy with the handbrake and would have thought that I should now only bring it up, say about half way, and get the feeling that the car is held firmly but it isnt..... its crap!!!!

What he said was "Did your missus not tell you what I told her when she picked the car up? It will get better over the next few days after regular use and auto adjust itself" Now I'm no mechanic but I find this abit hard to except. I said to him "so if my car rolls off down a hill and runs somebody over, I can just say- sorry about that, just that it takes a few days for the handbrake to sort itself out!!" Now I'm no mechanic, but I can pretty much maintain the basics of a car myself if I needed to, change discs, pads, filters etc etc but he's got me by the balls on this one as he explained to me in his patronising way how complex these peugeot auto adjusters are!

So what I'm asking is, should the handbrake still feel slack, especially after a service and having new cables and 1 rear caliper fittted and DOES it infact take time to tighten up, or is he just feeding me a line?

Sorry if this question has been asked before, but I did scour the web, and this forum site for the answer, but to no avail I was even going to go to our local Peugeot dealer and ask their mechanics for advice!

Thanks in advance.

[jasper5]

The 406 has manual adjusters, see here.....viewtopic.php?f=10&t=13956

What should happen is the new shoes will bed in then need re-adjusting afterwards, along with the new cables.

[marco2002]

My 406 failed its mot on the handbrake last week = seized handbrake cable. I had to strip the whole o/s/r discs/pads/ handbrake shoes to bits and free off the seized cable. Before I started work on it it was rock solid on about 6 to 7 clicks its quite well known that 406 handbrakes aren't very good i used to leave mine in gear sometimes.

After i adjusted my handbrake shoes it was rock solid on 3 clicks mot tester very happy with my work and bearing in mind my handbrake shoes have probably seen better days that gives you a good idea of how it should be. I've never heard of the handbrake being able to go to 14 clicks and adjust itself so it gets better over time. tbh that sounds like a load of crap. Is that garage you goto any good does it have a good reputation? I think if i'd spent £500 on all the bits that you have i'd want a handbrake to be rock solid at 3-4 clicks. I'd go back and ask to have it re-adjusted free of charge. I think you'll find that it would fail an mot on that many clicks. Good luck with getting that sorted out. Let us know how you get on. After reading your post I'm glad i do all my own work on my 406......

[gartroy]

Cheers Jasper, I did stumble upon this topic earlier, so now have an idea how to adjust them should I need to, but its just the manner of how my handbrake is now, after paying for it to be sorted. Wondering if the jobs been done properly which I doubt it has!!

Marco- when I quizzed and said if it went in for an MOT tomorrow, would it pass? he did say that "the handbrake is operating at 16%!!!!! so ye" I've asked two locals about this garage and they both gave it "I'd stear clear of that place" so abit late now, I only went there because it was right across the road, so it was convenient, and apparently... he gets on well with the in-laws !!!!!!!!! I find him patronising most times and he gets arsey when you challenge him about anything, kinda like "I know what I'm talking about, you don't" sort of attitude. I'm going to give it a few days, follow up that advice Jasper gave on that topic link and see how I get on, but I cant see it adjusting itself that much where-as I'l need to only pull it up a few clicks, a trip back for a free re-adjustment will be due next week I reckon.

[gumby6371]

I've worked on a couple of cars with auto-adjusters on the handbrake. In both cases there was still a manual adjusting wheel that you can wind on and off with the tip of a screw driver and some sort of leaf spring to operate the auto adjust.
When you fit new shoes you're supposed to get it some where near manually and the auto adjust does the 'fine tuning'.

If you've paid to have it fixed no garage should let a vehicle leave with a hand brake that won't hold the car.

[midsmike]

Mate ide take it back to the garage and take a pic of the manual adjusters even wen they bed in it still ent going to be less clicks it will be more I work on lots of cars and wen I do handbrakes I set them to 2 clicks sop wen they bed in and cables streech it will b on about 4 clicks plus check if they even changed any parts they say they did

[jasper5]

You can only set the brake adjusters roughly until the new shoes bed in, then you readjust them.

I always tell my customers to ring me after a month and I will reset all the adjusters foc.

Each handbrake has to be adjusted in relation to the car, some will be far too tight on 2 clicks and some too tight on 6 clicks, you have to take into account the shock absorber/suspension travel when you set the handbrake adjustment.

[gartroy]

Thanks everyone,

I think what I'l do is leave it for a couple of weeks for them to bed in atleast, then go back to the garage and have them adjusted.

What freakin annoys me is he never did say to me or the missus to bring it back later on for adjustment, so none of these things I would have known about, had I'd not started questioning it!! Surley then he can't complain if the car is still wanderin off when its parked up

To be continued.....................

[mike432]

Having just obtained a "Y" reg 406 110 Hdi estate and found the habdbrake to be rubbish and followed all the tips on here, I have improved the hanbrake function so it works and is capable of holding the car on a hill. (The handbrake drum was full of rust)
The one thing not mentioned, that I could see, was to run the car at a low speed with the hand brake just on to help bed the hand brake shoes in. Not for a long distance but also for a couple of times. It had quite a grinding noise for a couple of applications but the brake has quitened down and is quite effective. I have had the drums off since and the new shoes have wear marks on the face but as they are only an parking and emergency source of braking I am happy with them.
This was the only way of bedding the shoes that I could think of to get better friction surface contact without replacing the discs at the same time.
The hand brake is only applied when the car is stationary anyway, so will not bed in with normal use unless you have adjusted them up so they are binding, if you have done that you are wasting fuel and creating a lot of heat.