alright went to go get the inspection done today and failed. i failed the test because my parking brake wouldn't hold the vehicle. when engaged and left in DRIVE it would role as if it wasn't on. anyways i took it to the dealership to have them check it out and they told me that they HAVE TO REPLACE THE PART. well I asked if they could just tighten it and they said NO, HAS TO BE REPLACED. is this true? can't they just tighten it up? anyway they told me that it will be at least $440 to fix. any help/advice would be apprecitiated. Thanks....

Randy

 

The parking brake on the 99-04 half ton trucks have been a problem, they can not be adjust that I know of. The band will come apart and tear up the rotors. My brother has ran into this problem and it cost about $500 from the dealer to fix it, be a lot cheaper to fix it yourself. I have a 99 2500 and the parking brake is completely different, and a lot better than the half ton.

The last three shops that I have gone too, test the parking brake by going 30 mph and slamming on the parking brake, (they do a test drive, and test the parking brakes where I can't see them.) They tell me the same thing, the parking brake does not hold. My parking brake shoes are smaller than a 95 Toyota Corolla (my mom's car), and they are supposed to stop a truck that weight 6000 pounds.

The first time this happened to me I asked my neighbor, (Texas DPS Inspection Officer (semis)), how are the parking brake supposed to be tested on the light duty trucks (1/2-1 ton), well he did not know at first, but a day later he did. He told me its the same as they test semis, engage the parking brake and under lite throttle go forward in the lowest gear, if it goes forward then is fails, if the engine dies it passes (manual transmission), or stalls without moving (automatic transmission). I took him with to me to same place inspection and I passed without doing any work to the parking brake, and the inspector lost his license to inspect cars.

If you have not already had the repairs fixed, take off the rear rotors and look for yourself. The inspection station might try to get more money from you since they don't make a profit on inspection, this is illegal. The sticker cost $12.50 each from the DPS office and the inspection station can not mark up the cost of the sticker, so why have an inspection station I don't know that.

 

After twice in a year paying over $600 each time in just the rear brake alone, I'm not surprised with your predicament. if you have a disk/drum setup in the rear, that disk replacement is expensive on it's own, then there are the $80+ pads and $80+ shoes.. Labor.. Just bend over and take it dry

 

I don't use my e-brakes ever, can I take these peices of crap off this thing??? They are already f-ed up after 50k and getting worse by the day.
How the hell can they wear out if you never use them? Are they dragging all the time robbing me of power and acceleration as well??!!!
WTF man!!! but really

 

no the parking brake is bad for sure. i was on a hill and i tested it by engaging it and i didn't stop at all, just rolled down the hill. then when i was on flat road i engaged it and put it in drive and it started to move forward on its own.

well i got a call from the dealership and he said that it was going to cost me around $520 to replace the parking brake and because they said the rotor was torn up. shouldn't i be able to tell that my truck's rotor was bad by braking? cause it braked just fine. i don't get it, i feel like i am getting it sideways. so i asked them about the price of the parts that i am paying for and they wouldn't really give me the part#s but i told them about scoggin dickey parts center and how the prices there was so cheap. they told me that the prices that SCDPC has are way below there costs, is that true? how would SCDPC have cheaper prices than other GM dealerships? i went to RON CARTER and bought the front grey peice around the fog lamps and told them that i could get it for like $30 cheaper at SCDPC and RON CARTER accepted the quote and gave it to me for that price.

 

The disk has drum integrated into it, thus the high cost. I don't recall exactly what it was, but I think I paid around $260 for each one.

 

The parking brake on my 01 RCSB Z71 is a drum in hat design that is built into the hat of the rear disk rotor. The drum surface of the brake is only used by the C shaped parking brake shoe, that mounts behind the regular rear rotor. If you unbolt your caliper bracket and slide the disc caliper off of the rear rotor, you can see the e-brake shoe. You CAN adjust this yourself, provided the shoe is still good, and the drum surface on the inside of your rotor is OK. To adjust the e-brake, there is a mechanical piston that sits between the open tips of the C shaped shoe. When you apply the e-brake, this piston spreads the shoe, forcing it into contact with the drum. There's a small knurled wheel on the mechanical piston. Turn it to adjust the amount the piston spreads the shoe--thus compensating for wear of the shoe and drum. Also, be careful of the spring clip that holds the shoe in place--it's easy to misalign and let the shoe drag the drum. When adjusting, you want the shoe to not contact the drum at all with the e-brake off. I have the GM spec somewhere on the clearance you should have between the shoe and drum . . . In case I don't find it, just set it as small as possible without dragging. I don't have a dial caliper large enough to measure the clearance, and have replaced the shoes once and adjusted them twice in 110k mi. It's no problem, if you're patient.

 

There's actually a TSB that adresses this concern, same thing happened to mine. What happens is the retaining clip breaks that holds the e-brake shoe, and the shoe shifts and rubs on the drum part of the rotor, wiping out the rotor and e-brake shoe. The new shoes come with re-designed clips that are bigger than the originals. You might get lucky and just have to do the e-brake shoes if they didn't kill the rotor too much...

 

If you need the part number to anything on your truck checkout GM Parts Direct, they also have pictures that accompany almost every part number.

As for SDPC being cheaper than than your local dealer is because they can provide you with a better price than anyone else, and you will come back to them for any more parts or repairs. Your dealer could match their price but they would lose a lot of money on profit, damn that GM upfront pricing, because the time they quote is set in stone they can not differ from that time. If you ask the Service department how much your rotors are, they would put you on hold and ask the parts guys for the list price and charge a little more.

If you can do a brake job, you will be saving serval hundred dollar, and you will have the satisfaciton that nobody ripped you off in the process.

 

I had this problem and adjusting the p brake worked for my truck. Btw, I had a mechanic do this for me when my truck was down for some work.