A friend was given an 02 diesel Veccy as his company car. After a 200 mile trip he parked it outside a friend\'s house. 3 hours later it was still there. However next morning it had gone.
Pacing up and down the road, smoking furiously, he found the car at the bottom of the hill, lodged against a tree. He assumed it had been broken into, but there were no signs, and the steering lock was still on. However, the handbrake was in the fully \"off\" position. He maintains that he put the handbrake on, he MUST have done, otherwise the car would have rolled away earlier.
Has anyone come across this with Vectras? (The dealer said that \"this can happen after long journeys when the brakes get hot, then as they cool they shrink, thus releasing the handbrake\". It was at that point that I wondered whether this was a car dealer or a dealer in exotic substances...)
This happened in January and the car is still with a Vauxhall repair shop in Scotland. Apparently Vectras are put together with some special equipment which \"wasn\'t in the country\", and once it arrived the dealer had to send his people on training, and now they are all trained and raring to go but they are awaiting delivery of rods. This sounds like one of the most drawn out pathetic excuses I have heard for poor customer service, but maybe there is some truth in it?
10 weeks - and they only offered him a very small car for a limited period...luckily the company has got him a Skoda Octavia turbo, which seems pretty good.
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Cars running away was a big problem on early Citroen Xantias - the handbrake operates on the front disc brakes and folk just weren't pulling it on hard enough, and as the discs cooled and shrank the cars ran away. Citroen's mod was to fit a handbrake with fewer ratchet teeth on it to make sure people pulled it on hard enough. However, your friend indicates that the handbrake was in the off position, which rather suggests failure of the ratchet mechanism or operator error.
Don't know about not getting it straightened out though.
Moral of story - always leave cars in gear on hills!!
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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I don't see how brakes cooling down can make the handle go down, the handle is held up by a ratchet and sring in the handle mechanism, and the button would need to be pushed in to release the ratchet, Something funny 's going on here.
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smokie
You are correct that the dealer is wrong on this one. The Vectra handbrake uses a small drum brake system inside the disc - it does not apply the main pads. So, like any drum brake, as it cools down it contracts and applies more load, not less, to the handbrake linings. Few cars use the main pads for the handbrake, because in that case as the disc cools it does reduce the handbrake clamping load.
Looks like the ratchet slipped for some reason.
Regards
John S
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as matter of interest.it is possible to forget to put on handbrake leaving the car in gear so the car does not move.
it uses compression left in cylinders to hold the car in place when at a standstill.ie engine off.not saying this is the case but some do leave handbrake off with it being left in gear.compression eases off then makes engine turn over slowly causing car to to move.just a thought?
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As I have mentioned before, gear instead of handbrake can be a useful precaution in very cold climates to prevent freezing on - of course forward gear facing uphill and vice versa. If compression leaks away, the crankshaft moves on to the next cylinder; the car won't start uphill by itself.
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think the post mentioned bottom of hill.
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I was taught, about a million years ago, to always leave the car in gear with the wheels pointing in towards the kerb. Early Morris Minors and Ford Pops had less than effective hand brakes. Come to that their foot brakes were not that brilliant either!
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