Always Press The Handbrake Button? Myth Busted 

randomly whips out a brake disc and pad

The handbrake on my truck has been pulled without pressing the button for 47 years and almost 600,000 miles and it still works the same as always.

Better not engage the brakes when driving, it causes unnecessary wear to the brake pads and shortens the life of them!

that socket wrench analogy was gold

personally I love the ratcheting sound. Auto manufacturers should make it even louder.

It is so refreshing to hear someone using facts and logic instead of "feelings" to prove their point. Well done.

It won't break, it will just brake. Wow, that was bad. :P

I always use mcdonnald's drive-though instead of going inside in order to avoid wearing out the dome light.

I'm glad everyone in the comments understands that wear is a result of friction. I assumed this much was obvious - but it is wrong to assume. When I stated wear occurs as a result of heat, my intention was to explain that heat can dramatically accelerate wear. The brake pads and tires were my example. Hope you're all having a great day!

Look at the smirk on his face throughout the video, he's laughing inside cause he probably can't believe he's having to explain a parking break to people who give him crap for it

Am I the only one who loves the sound of a proper hand brake ratcheting?

I sure hope those Car Throttle guys saw this.

I wonder if anyone has ever had to replace the ratchet mechanism. I've never heard of one wearing out.

Thank you to Car Throttle for perpetuating this myth.

I always pulled the handbrake without pushing the button. I assumed the button was only for putting it down.

Here's one for the "worried about wear" crowd: pressing the button when applying the parking break will wear out the spring! 🙃

Logic & Physics: 1 Car Culture Hype: 0

i never use the hand-brake i don't want to wear out my pads, in fact i still have a brand new car in my garage from 2005 i don't drive it because i don't want to get bugs on the paint.

He roasted everyone with the socket wrench example v

"The thing to think about when thinking about"

I only push the button for handbrake turns.

The socket wrench was a great comparison. That's a way to prove a point!

Don't buy a car. It will wear down your financial capabilities.

i like to test my car when i stop on a hill and see how many clicks it takes for the car to stop moving, well i get bored waiting for my woman to get ready and come of the house..

while I completely agree with you that the ratchet mechanism on the handbrake is designed to be used... as a ratchet, I disagree with your statement that wear is caused by heat. heat is caused by friction, wear is also caused by friction, it's just that when you have enough friction to cause significant amounts of heat very regularly then there is a lot of friction, lots of friction also causes lots of wear.

In Alex's words, "it's like going in without lube"

I gotta show this video to my mom... She keeps telling me not the pull the handbreak without pushing the button. Thanks, now I will be relieved.

car throttle = REKT

I was told not to turn the steering wheel all the way to the left or right when turning my car at a U-turn. Is this another case of people educated by those that don't understand things?

+1 for using the socket wrench as a great example.

It's the same when people tell you not to crack your knuckles because so called bad things will happen to your hands, in actual fact, it's more to do with people finding the crunching sound irritating lol.

More than ten years ago when I was a learner driver, my driving instructor told me that pulling up the handbrake without pressing the button would wear out the mechanism. Since then, I've always pressed the button and when I accidentally make it make a bit of noise or hear someone else pulling up their handbrake fully and making a long grating noise, it makes me wince and think that it's created a bit of damage!

Those kinds of drivers keep their tv remote in a plastic baggy

Pushing the button wears out the button!

1:45 he says the words "really fast" as a car whips by him in great speed. nice one!

The ratcheting sound is good. It tells the passengers the handbrake has been applied and it's safe to get out of the car. Great for kids who are in a rush to get out of the car i.e "don't open your doors till you hear the handbrake."

Car Throttle is going to be pissed! lol

I love this, its always driven me crazy how people hate clicking the handbrake, but will gladly let out a clutch at 3500 rpm

45 years in the motor trade and never saw one handbrake ratchet replaced ever. had the same snap on ratchet for 30 years approx. still works perfect. Urban myth a bit like "a swan can break your leg with its wing" lol..

I've done this in videos without paying attention so many times and the comment section is 99% having a go at me for it. Thank you for this. I can sleep at night now.

I always pull it up without pressing the button.. Thug life

I'd never heard anyone talk about this until I saw Car Throttle whine about it.

I CAN FINALLY PULL MY HAND BRAKES AND NOT FEEL BAD!

Thank you for calling it a "parking brake" and not an "e brake". What a relief. I expect that when you do videos on "wheels" you call them "wheels" and not "rims" too. Keep up the good work!

If you wanna be really pedantic, pushing the button every time you engage the brake will wear out the spring :P

I love how you don't just tell people that it's not going to hurt it, you pull one apart and show the mechanism! Very happy I subscribed.

Finally someone with my thinking. I do the same with the clutch - no need to press it down when changing gears, just bang them in and there is a bit of ratcheting sound as the gear teeth rub on each other but has been fine on my car - every 1,000 miles i just change the gearbox ;)

This is a tip I learned years ago, before you pull the handbrake on press the footbrake hard .This pre applies the brake pads or shoes against the disc or drum and increases the efficiency of the handbrake application needing less effort and less stress on the mechanism.

I never think it's going to break. I just don't like the noise so I've been pushing the button in lol.

Engineering OVERexplained

The clicks are actually designed to give the driver a feedback how tight he's using the handbrake. You don't have to pull it all the way up everytime - just on let's say down or uphill. On a flat surface you don't need that much brake pressure or don't even use it at all: some say the inserted gear after power off the car is enough to hold it. Personally I prefer to use the handbrake as second guard against rolling...

I love how you, very politely, expose people's stupidity with pure knowledge and logic.

It's like pushing the button when fastening the seatbelt.

Finally! I'm so sick of hearing people saying you should press the button and then pull up and trying to explain to them it causes no harm. I hope this videos get mores views in the coming weeks because people really need to understand this. Parking brakes located in the footwells make the same noise too! Apparently, people lack common sense. Which doesn't seem very common these days. Also, reading these comments, how is the sound annoying? I suppose starting up the car sounds annoying? Typing on your keyboard sounds annoying? How about the noise your shower makes when it turns on? Seriously, if your response to this is "the sound is annoying," please stick to public transit.

People just need to argue, man. No logic required :D Cheers for the video!

My 22yr old corolla (315,000 km) has had the no button hand brake pull from me for the last 21 years. My Dad taught me not to use the button when engaging the hand brake because it may overstretch the cable. I don't know if that's true or not, but I have had discussions with others who argue to depress the button. Lol. Thanks for the clip. Makes perfect sense to me. Love your informative and easy to understand videos. Thanks.

I feel bad that you even had to make a video about this...

It's so satisfying hearing it click.

You're the best youtuber ever.

Thank so much for this video. I hate people who tell others to always press the handbrake button.

Great video. My understanding is exactly yours. However my driving instructor (43 years ago!) told me to press the button in, so I've been doing that for the last 44 years. I admit the silence of the action of applying the handbrake with button depressed is subjectively more 'refined' than the ratchet sound and his car was new-ish so I can kind of understand his reaction, but scientific and logical it was not! You make very enjoyable videos. Subscribed! All the best, Rob in Switzerland.

i still push the button when i pull the parking brake because i simply hate hearing the " kkrrrrraaaaaaakk"

In the U.K., the advanced motorist training also says press the button and would mark you down if you did. When asked why, they say it is to stop wear. Like in the video, I replied, "When was the last time you heard someone say they had to get their car into a garage to change the handbrake mechanism" which shut them up but they still mark against it. Love the ratchet spanner analogy, wish I'd thought of that.

typically its not the ratchet mechanism that wears out as shown in the video, but this method usually results in stretching of the handbrake cable itself. even if only over done by one or two teeth at a time it can still cause the cable to stretch, some people have a tendency to pull the lever harder than they need to when not using the button. most people will hit the same spot all the time which means that there isn't any noticeable stretch of the cable, however some people pull the lever unnecessarily hard and stretch the cable needing it to be replaced. it seems like people have been miss informed by someone at some point as to what actually wears out, could have been car garages trying to make some extra money by duping customers

In Canada at least they teach you in driver training to not push the button to ensure the brake actually engages and is not slipping.

The cable will snap long before the teeth grind down!

The socket wrench analogy was a gem, thank you so much for this

My driving teacher asked to push the handbrake button on his car, pointing that with my car it is OK not to push the button, but not with his car. He said, that his (instructor's) car is used for about 10 hours a day 6 days per week and with the parking lot excercises most of the time (hill climb with manual transmision, etc.), so the racheting mechanism work a lot in this case. He said, that he had problems with handbrake lock with his previous car after about 4 years use for teaching

"-instead of, you know; the way it's actually designed to work."

The only trouble that I have experienced in my 38 years of driving is that the cables stretch and fail first. I have lived in some hilly areas of the fruited plain, always turn your wheels toward the curb and use your handbrake. I've watched many folks chasing their vehicles down the street. Sam.

In Russia we are actually taught in driving schools to never push a button on a handbrake on its way up

Friend had been pulling the handbrake without using the button for 8 years on their car. When I passed my test and got that car, I started using the button because that's what I was told to do by instructors. The button broke a month into use. I now only use the button for releasing handbrakes. Moral of the story, even if the ratchet wears (which it kind of does, but at a rate that is negligible and shouldn't even be considered this argument) it's a hunk of metal and will ALWAYS wear much slower than the button anyways.

Funny that Car Throttle had this listed as one of the things to never do. Maybe u need to take a trip to UK and talk with him in the tiny bathroom again. Keep up the great content

it work pretty much like a bike cassette!

Brilliant explanation with that ratchet wrench! That totally busted the myth for me!

To me, that grinding hand brake sound is just like listening to chiropractic adjustments. When you hear that sound, you know it's all good.

lol funny how you had to make a video about this, some people....

The ratcheting noise of the parking brake is so satisfying.

It's always awesome when people post RU-vid videos on how to work on cars, it saves me big time money.

Also think about where the wear is going to happen. Pulling up the handbrake might wear the tips of the gear, but when the handbrake is set all the force is working at the bottom of the gear teeth. So even slightly higher wear will almost never have an effect on the main function -> to keep the brake in place.

When he said some people say it can cause unnecessary wear I immediately rolled my eyes.

Always the same... In the middle of the video "let's take a look at this..." Grabs a brake pad and a disc out of nowhere xD Nice video, keep up the good work, lovely explanations.

I totally agree that, on a well designed and built hand/parking brake the ratchet should be used as you describe. However, wear is not caused solely by heat. I once drove a van where the pawl of the hand/parking brake was made of mild steel working on a hardened ratchet and it did wear out. Cheap and not correctly designed, but cheap enough to replace.

Having multiple family members that work in the motor trade I have always known this but I'm definitely going to show this video to my driving instructor lol

Wouldn't the button just wear out faster instead?

I wore out my handbrake in Tokyo when I was drifting against the grandson of yakuza mafia boss. Should I keep using the e brake while drifting in my fwd car or just use the brakes?

Hello there! I think there might be a small opportunity for misconception on the problem stated here and the solution given. I just spend a good portion of the afternoon fixing my handbrake and I had to do a bit or learning for it. It might be that the part that has led to the idea that the hand brake wears out is not the ratchet mechanism itself but the connection to the actuator button. In the handbrake mechanism for my car (golf a4) The button assembly is a long piston like rod that has the button on one side and on the other one is connected to the ratchet lever by means of a small indentation. The ratchet lever goes trough a small hole in the rod and it is not connected directly, but just sit there loosely. Every time the button us pushed it moves the lever of the ratchet and unlocks the position, but if the ratchet is run without pressing the button it bounces and jiggles freely in that hole, hammering slightly at the rod with the force of the ratchet's spring on each step. The problem here is that this rod is made of plastic, and the ratchet lever is metal. I don't think the ratchet or its lever would ever get worn out significantly during the normal use of the car. But the union of the button's rod and ratchet's lever certainly could, that's what happened on my car, it broke right there, you could tell by the pattern in which the piece cracked. A small metal piece hammering at a rigid plastic part over years would certainly cause a problem. I saw that the button assembly in your car appears to be a metal rod and has no access to the point of contact from that rod to the ratchet lever. But that is not the only mechanism there is for handbrakes. My car has access to that joint point, and, when I was looking for the parts to fix my handbrake I found a lot of others from different brands and makers that also use a plastic rod or had a similar approach. Also, I think the fact that they sell that piece individually and not the whole assembly is another clue to the fact that there is a weak point there. I am certain that holding the button would prevent or delay the wear on that piece, and my car would not had needed to be fixed now if we had done that as a precaution. Of course there are lots of caveats. In my case it took almost 20 years for that piece to break down. Also, I live in a very hot place, and my car is dark. The heat has certainly weaken every plastic inside my car over the years. Now while I know holding the button would help, I don't know if it is worth it to do it to avoid breaking that part. Or if its worth to be aware of that potential damage. For me, It took oh so long to break down, and I definitely love the handbrake ratchet's sound and feel, also to change that piece was an easy fix. However, I certainly know that the idea of not pressing the button causing wear and the potential to break the handbrake because of it is true. At least for many makers and brands and under certain fairly common conditions. I just wanted to let what I learn be known. To give some context or maybe justification to some of the comments and ideas about the handbrake. Though I am sure many of those that defend the point of holding the button and think that the ratchet would get damaged are wrong for the reasons you explained maybe my findings can help give some light to the origins of the myth. Or why is not really a myth to begin with, but has a different mechanism of wear than the one commonly believed. Other thing, when I went to the mechanic at the dealership to try to get my handbrake fixed, they told me they would need to replace the whole piece, not just the button's rod. I am not sure if they told me this out of ignorance on the workings of the part or if they wanted to sell more, but I think this is also a good example of why would people believe that not pressing the button causes damage in the whole handbrake ratchet mechanism. I hope my explanation was clear and that it was useful, also hope that Jason gets to see my comment and it doesn't get lost in the sea of notifications haha Thank you very much, I'm a long time fan, I really enjoy the videos!

Here's something funny... one of my uncles used to tell me that pushing the button or not didn't make any difference at all; I didn't believe him. Now that I hear it from you, I do believe it. It's pretty amazing how trust can affect someone's judge ... That was a pretty good explanation by the way. Thank you.

Car throttle...you watching this!!!!!

Anyone else actually enjoy the sound of the socket wrench being used?

It's such a low usage part too. How often does an E-brake get used during normal operation? Once when you stop, maybe once when you hit a real bad hill and you aren't too confident in your hill start abilities. You use a part that little, you don't have to worry so much about it wearing out. I'm glad you broke out a socket wrench too, that's exactly what I was thinking about.

Now I need to send this to my driving instructor who gets in a hissy fit whenever he hears that ratchet noise.

What does car throttle have to say about this?

still going to press the button cuz i hate the sound.

i like your videos, mainly because you use props and explain with it. This is a great way to verbally and visually help people understand "FULLY" what you mean by what you're saying. Very enjoyable because i analyze a lot and sometimes to much and confuse myself. with this technique of explaining it helps me a lot and im sure a lot others. Thanks for the vids and congrats on the amount of veiws you have been getting.

I love how the handbrake has some white letters on it like it came from a scrapyard and is not as old as the car haha

I'm glad I can show people this video for the next time this argument comes up.

I just love the sound it makes.

It should be noted that, when using the parking brake as an instant U-turn handle, you should hold the button down for the entire maneuver so you can let it off at precisely the correct time without the ratchet interfering.

On close up pic, I cant see metal fragments on the teeth of handbrake. It is wearing out, just not very fast. If you want your things to last, try to reduce as much strain on everything as possible. Instead of breathing, and wearing out your poor lungs, just get all of your air in at once and go throughout the day on a single breath. Oh and lets not forget about sleeping for a month and going the whole year on that month supply of sleep! Glad this helped everyone!