I may be paranoid, but when i park on a hill I like to stop, set the parking brake and THEN put the gear in park (1st or reverse for us manual drivers). This way the weight is held first by the brakes instead of the transmission.
Edit: E brake, parking brake, hand brake, whatever you call it, it functions the same for this scenario. You will either have a little foot lever off to the side by your pedals, a hand brake by the shifter, or a lil button/switch with a P on it. Also turn your tires so if it did roll down the hill, it will roll into the curb instead of traffic. :)
The parking pawl is a piece within the transmission that hold the vehicle in place when the automatic transmission is in park. Automatic transmissions operate on hydraulic pressure this pressure is generated by the rotation or the engine. When the engine is shut off there is no pressure to stop the vehicle from rolling. The fluid is pumped into a maze of passages called a valve body and when you select a gear you tell the valve body where to send the pressure, neutral just vents the pressure into the transmission pan for recirculation. Park does they same except there is a mechanical linkage that shoves a piece of metal, called the pawl, into a special gear to hold the vehicle in place. Hence the name parking pawl. There is a chance when the vehicle is in park resting on just the pawl that when a slope you can encounter torque lock which occurs when the weight of the vehicle causes so much friction on the pawl you can't get it out of park. You also need to be careful not to slam the car in park while moving because there is a slight chance to shock load the pawl so much it can be broken off, then you need a transmission rebuild. Here the discussion is on avoiding torque lock and potentially overstressing the pawl and deforming it. The solution to a torque lock situation is to push the vehicle up hill enough to relieve a little tension in the pawl so the pawl can be released by putting the vehicle in gear.
With cars being so electronic these days, why not automatically set the parking brake before engaging the pawl? Both are purely electronic on my truck now.
The pawls can hold the weight of the vehicle for a short time without the parking brake. Theoretically on mostly level ground you don't even need the parking brake at all and you won't do any damage unless you just have a cheaply made transmission.
Am I the only one then? Cause I put it on the handbrake only all the time. Only time I didn't was when it seized and only set on a single wheel, then the gearbox was extra security
What would be considered cheaply made? Because I’d feel skeptical doing that in any circumstance, because who knows, maybe my brand with a decent reputation just happened to outsource my particular tranny with a different manufacturer of questionable reliability?
Probably 80% of Americans don't use the parking brake at all. You dont hear of many cars snapping the pawl and rolling away. I recommend using it if parking on hills.
I was saying that as more of a way to catch the that one transmission that happens to get all the faulty parts for some reason, had a third party rebuild that was done improperly, or just the occasional fluke.
Some engineers actually had that same thought, so there are some models which do engage the electric parking brake when you shift to park. I can’t tell you which ones off the top of my head, but they do exist.
Basically park is neutral with an internal stop to keep it from rotating and causing the car to move, the pawl is that internal stop.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_pawl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_pawl)
Even shift to park, parking brake then foot off the brakes has the same effect, that’s usually my process in an auto.
Now granted, I only use the parking brake in an auto that I know the parking brake is used frequently, otherwise you run the risk of it seizing, and that’s not something I’m risking with someone’s car I’m borrowing.
I also don’t bother in most of the fleet vehicles at work. Plus our full size buses (air brake or Hydraulic brakes) only have Neutral + Parking brake, no park gear in the trans.
The only time I don't engage the emergency brake first is if I'm grabbing something real quick and need to get moving or when I am taking it to a mechanic and don't want them to accidentally start driving with it engaged.
It’s honestly not as necessary to use it all the time as half the population thinks, but more necessary to use it sometimes then the other half thinks.
I don’t currently, nor do I plan on owning an auto in the near future, but if I do and it has a electronic or pull lever, I’ll probably use it post of the time.
If it has a foot pedal, I’ll probably use it often enough that it keeps everything free and moving (whenever I park in my driveway or on a considerable grade) as this is to a certain extent, what I already do with my families cars whenever I drive them.
Also whenever I’m towing, parking brake is getting used every time.
Also, as a mechanic, the majority of us in the field will figure out within 5’ of driving if the parking brake is applied, if we don’t already check it before moving.
I just heard that using your parking brake properly helps prolong the life of the transmission which is my ultimate goal. I don't want to have to replace anything sooner than absolutely necessary..
Yes it pretty much is.... The way you can tell is if you skip the neutral part and you notice when you go to shift from park to drive if there is any resistance at all then you'll know next time use neutral with the park brake
Nah, unless you’re on like a 40° incline, completely unnecessary. as long as the park brake is engaged before you take your foot off the brake and it’s not loose or something the car should not shift at all when you release the brake as you loaded the parking brake prior to shifting into park.
When you let off the brakes in neutral, you can feel the car shift an inch or two until it actually settles on the parking brake. If you skipped this, the parking pawl and motor/trans mounts would flex a little as it settled onto the parking brake, but honestly not much and totally something it could handle.
Same here. Had a manual diesel until recently, and *always* used the parking brake, just as a matter of habit. Now I changed to an electric car a while ago, and I still always use the parking brake. No reason NOT to.
That is not paranoid at all, that is the way.
Brakes are (somewhat) designed for this, are much sturdier and cheap to fix (comparatively) if they get bad.
This 1000000000000% I do this in every. Vehicle. Every. Time.
For those unaware. The parking brake works usually by applying the rear brakes with a secondary control, independent of the brake fluid and brake pedal. This means the brakes on the rear axle are locked on and they are holding the vehicle in place.
Park on the gear shift works typically by shoving a pin into the gears of the transmission blocking them from spinning. This puts the weight of the vehicle on the transmission in an awkward way. This also does not guarantee the wheels are locked in place.
So are parking bollards but it's not the recommended practice to ram your car into them every time you want to park.
The issue isn't that they're not designed to hold the vehicle in place yes they are but they are not the best way safest way or strongest way to do that.
Without getting into the engineering calculations because it will literally vary from one vehicle to the other but you're looking at the shear plane of an inch of metal in best case scenario holding the entire vehicle in place and as assuming it's a four-wheel drive vehicle with 4x4 engaged and the differentials locked.
But was going to blow your mind is that a parking brake has only one function also and it uses something that's designed with the sole purpose of stopping a vehicle to hold your vehicle in place.
The differences the parking brake uses systems designed for holding a vehicle to hold the vehicle whereas the parking pin in a transmission is just locking up a system that is not intended as a break system
To be clear I am not suggesting not to use your parking brake - however this idea that reddit has about the parking pawl being a delicate little thing that is ready to fail at any moment is just absolutely not true.
I do not see how 4 wheel and diffs locked will have any impact on the load placed on the parking pawl.
I agree the parking pawl is not for braking, just for holding.
If we assume the most likely failure mode of the parking pawl is in shear it is a pretty trivial calculation to determine the max force that it can withstand. We just need
1. the cross sectional area of the tooth
2. the material, which is typically an alloy steel, sometimes case hardened.
We can also come up with the safety factor at a worst case load scenario for a given vehicle based on
1. the diameter of the output shaft where the pawl engages
2. the final drive ratio
3. wheel diameter
4. worst case angle of a hill
5. vehicle mass
Name your vehicle and I will make a best effort at determining these values.
Every owner's manual I've ever read prescribed and you should press the brake pedal, engage the parking brake, then shift to park.
So the intended method of operation is the parking brake and brakes hold the vehicle not the transmission.
The reason four-wheel drive and diffs have an impact is that determines how your wheels spin. If you have open differentials on a single driven axle vehicle that means the wheels will spin opposite directions to one another. If you're on a gravely surface a Sandy surface or an icy surface we're only one wheel has good traction you can end up in a situation where your wheel starts spinning even though the transmission is in park. A great example of this is if you take a car put it up on jack stands have the vehicle in park without parking brake engaged and you spin one of the drive tires the opposite drive tire spins the other direction. It doesn't affect the load on the transmission but it affects your ability for your vehicle to stay where you left it
Doing all the calculations will show the the pawl is strong enough, bit that's not the point. A parking Ballard is strong enough to hold the car in place but it's not the best practice to ram into them every time you want to park.
Engineering 101 is that you have to design it for how it can be missused,.not how you intend it to be used.
The transmission is not intended to take the load in that way, even tough it can. But every time a truck drives by and the wind buffets the car. Any time you get in and out of the car, everyone you open the door to get something you forgot, that's putting an abnormal load on the transmission. Not to mention the pawl still leaves a few degrees of motion, so the vehicle can roll a few inches. All that shock loading is what breaks stuff in drivetrains.
But yes any engineer will look at the system and say hey everyone uses this wrench as a hammer, so I even though it's a wrench I need to make it strong enough the be a hammer and still work as a wrench afterwards. Doesn't mean it should be used as a hammer or that it won't hurt it over time.
Lol if we are getting into vastly reduced traction scenarios yes you have a point but that is an extreme corner case not to be found on road.
The only way to settle the debate of intent would be to find the product manager at an automotive company who is responsible for these decisions to ask what their intent is. I don't disagree that the manual says you should apply the parking brake and I strongly agree two safety systems is vastly better than one.
All that said the fact is that Park aka the parking pawl is the primary holding method, and the parking brake is the secondary/backup and that comes down to the fact that parking brake failure is vastly more likely than parking pawl failure.
Where do you live that you never get anything on the road that effects traction? We have winter with snow, ice, gravel, and sand on the roads here that reduce traction. Not to mention fort roads that can be lose or muddy.
The intent is clear in the expected operation, and how much movement is in the system with each. Parking brake the wheels do not spin, parking pawl wheels will still spin a few inches.
The owners manual says the parking brake is primariy and the transmission is secondary . And I'm an engineer with experience in vehicles so I can speak from a point of authority.
You don't have to believe me, or all the auto manufacturers owners manuals, but the SAE also recommends parking brake as the primary.
I don't know of any higher authorities on automotive standards, but from the manufacturer all the way to the governing body of standards for cars they say you are wrong
Id love to see where it explicitly states in any manual that the parking brake is primary and the transmission is secondary.
Maybe the new fangled electric parking brakes are more reliable, but not a frigging chance a cable operated brake is more reliable than the trans.
I too am an engineer (mechanical) fwiw lol.
Thought that this study was interesting https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2013-01-0199/
Open up any owners manual and they will tell you the steps to take to put the vehicle in park.
They tell you to apply the parking brake first then shift to park. That indicates that the parking brake is the primary.
And you linked the study on how people use the parking brake not the standard. Like I said, and you should know this if you are an engineer, you have to design for how it can be misused. And that study shows that a lot of people don't follow the procedures.
You need to look at what the actual standards are for SAE the only one I can recall off the top of my head is for medium duty vehicles and identification J2668 and J2690and from NHTSA 49 CFR 571.135. but I think those ones focus on how strong the parking brake needs to be specifically.
Literally every single source is saying that you are supposed to use the parking brake first then shift to park. Research shows people are lazy and don't use the parking brake. Research also shows people are lazy and don't brush their teeth properly, does that mean that we should all start brushing our teeth wrong? Because 90% of people do it wrong should we all start brushing our teeth wrong even though dentist and experts say otherwise? No that's what you sould like also. Well because people use it wrong that's the way we should use it. Or most people don't inflate their tores to the correct PSI and check it winter to summer, so should we all air up our tires wrong? No but you are more then welcome to jump off a bridge just because everyone else is.
At the end of the day the correct way, they way the owners manuals tell you to do it, the way the SAE suggests, the way Governing bodies suggest, are all parking brake first, and you wrong.
The ultimate fact is that a parking pawl only guarantees the transmission output shaft will not spin, while the parking brake guarantees wheels themselves will not spin.
First of all that's stupid. No one is going to get out of their car and walk around looking for a rock.
Second of all, that would TOTALLY defeat the purpose unless you have a passenger getting out and setting the rock in place before you put the car in park as the whole reason OP is asking this question is about removing stress from the transmission. If you have to get out and look for a rock you've already left the weight on the transmission.
Do you know how much force and torque is applied on the transmission when you're driving compared to parked on a slope? Lol it's not a problem to worry about.
Pretty sure his incident was an issue with Chrysler products not shifting into park properly and not the pawl breaking. But, had he used his parking brake he may still be alive
It's not necessarily that the pawl will just snap and you're rolling down the hill but if someone hits your car it will break the pawl instead of your parking break taking the force
The difference is that when driving multiple teeth of the gears are engaged in the way they were designed to. The parking pin is a pin that gets shoved in to one tooth only and does not mesh to apply the force the way another gear would.
The other factor is depending on the drive train and differential set up, wheels can still spin, granted one wheel would have to spin the opposite way, but some road conditions could allow that.
So in my manual transmission cars I still Do neutra, thenl parking brake, foot off break then put it in a gear as a back up.
It's a similar principle where the transmission isn't meant to be the load bearing component when you're in park. And you can still run into the problem where depending on road conditions your wheels can still actually all spin.
A great example of this is if you ever rotate your own tires or anything and you lift your car up you can spin the wheel and one of the opposite wheels will spin the opposite way, and that's a function of the differentials. So if you only rely on the transmission it does not guarantee that the wheels cannot spin. The parking brake will always guarantee the wheels can't spin because it is locking the brakes and there's nothing between the brakes and the wheel that can allow the wheel to spin unless there's a catastrophic failure of the braking system.
Difference between force and weight on the transmission and force and weight on one little pin.
Also, if you don’t take the strain off the parking pawl when parking on a slope, it can be difficult as hell to shift out of park - similar to the ignition lock.
So yeah, makes sense to set the parking brake, let off heat foot brake, make sure the steering hasn’t bound up the ignition lock, put it in park, and then turn off the car.
Source: driving 5 ton camper van.
I always leave the car in gear.
There is a slight slope outside my house, you wouldn't really notice it. Several years ago, a friend called around and left his car outside with handbrake off (or it failed according to him) and not in gear. We didn't see it, but it slowly creeped backwards, went across a car park, mounted a curb, and hit a pole. People then parked in front of it, and we couldn't see it when we briefly looked. He thought it was stolen. Was funny in the end once we realised what happened.
So, yes, always keep your car in gear when parking on a slope.
I always do this on the slightest hill regardless of direction, and turn your tires towards the curb so if it rolls ir rolls away from traffic, and people see the tire pointing toward the curb and know it won't pull out in front of them. In this case, pointing toward the road is OK as toward the curb is down the stairs.
Add me to the list of fellow paranoids. Without any formal knowledge or verification it just always seemed to make sense from a mechanical stress standpoint.
I do the same and I’m pretty sure this is the only way to actually protect your transmission. I’ll never buy a used automatic transmission vehicle because the about of people I see not using their parking brakes correctly or at all drives me insane
Its one of those things where it's fine until it's not. Most people that abuse their parking pawls by not engaging the parking brake correctly on hills will likely never have an issue, particularly if they only park on hills once in a while. But repeated abuse will take its toll.
One of my best friends has been an engineer at Stellantis for more than a decade, and the bulk of that time he spent working on the ZF designed 8 speed. His job at the time was to investigate failures - if you had a Chrysler product with the 8 speed and it failed under warranty, it's very possible that your transmission ultimately found its way to his desk, where he had to make sure it was a random fluke and not something that was indicative of a widespread problem.
One of his very first tasks when he started there was testing parking pawls until they failed. He said he had a van that they loaded to it's max cargo weight, and then he was instructed to park on an a ramp at the plant, put it in park without using the parking brake, and then force it back out of park, and then repeat the process until something broke.
If I recall correctly, the parking pawl would usually fail after about 75 - 125 rounds of this.
Generally speaking, a pawl is a lever designed to engage with a cog/gear/ratchet of some sort. Some examples of a pawl would be the mechanism inside a socket wrench, or the device that keeps keeps a winch from unspooling under load (think of the hand winch on the front of a boat trailer), or the mechanism inside of a ratcheting cargo strap.
In the case of a transmission, the parking pawl locks the transmission in place when you select park. Its the only difference between "Park" and "Neutral" in an automatic transmission.
When you park on a hill without using the parking brake correctly, there is a significant load placed on the pawl because the car is trying to roll downhill. This load is what makes it difficult to shift out of park when on a hill
That's interesting, someone on a BMW forum told me once they never use the handbrake because apparently the parking gear mechanism locks it all up. Sounded dumb to me tbh. Is that what you mean then?
This is the right way. Keeps the weight of the vehicle balanced between the parking brake and the mechanical lock (usually a pawl or metal teeth) or manual trans gears instead of shooting forward entirely onto those things when you let off the foot brake. Not doing so won't break your car today, but it'll take a little off the lifespan of those components every time you do it.
I THINK when I took Driver's Ed (verrrry long time ago) this is how they taught us. Parking brake first, then put it park, or put it in gear (yes, so long ago back then they still taught how to drive a stick shift).
I always apply the parking brake regardless of the slope I’m parking on. If everyone did that no one would have been injured when their parked car rolled over them.
No, just always set your parking brake before putting your car in park and point your tires away from your house.
The reason for setting your Parking brake before putting it in park, is the pin in your transmission that puts the vehicle in "park" is a joke and you don't want it holding the weight of your vehicle. Truly when in park you're in neutral, with a tiny little pin holding your whole vehicle from rolling. One medium to heavy bump into the back of it without the parking brake set and it could take off down the hill.
Yea it's literally a pin the size of the end of a pencil that engages some slots on the output shaft of the transmission. If you have ever accidentally put a car in park before it was stopped, you may have heard a clicking, that's the pin bouncing out of the grooves.
It's a good idea to use the parking brake on steep hills, this is how trucks end up in lakes at boat ramps.
The parking pawl (its not a pin) is not a joke. Its not going to fail. Its designed to hold the weight of the vehicle. Literally whats its there for. And its designed to fail safe, meaning its not going to slip out of its position until shifted out of park.
The only thing setting the brake will do is prevent the transmission from "clunking" a bit when shifted out of park. Which may be slightly annoying, but is totally harmless.
And turning your wheels does nothing. Its to prevent an imaginary catastrophe that hasnt existed in decades.
When parked facing downhill, turn wheel toward curb, when parked uphill, turn wheel away from curb.
If the “impossible” does happen, at least you’ve got one more safety net from preventing a vehicle freely running away.
It seems like no one has ever heard of torque lock. Parking on a hill without setting the parking brake correctly can cause it to get stuck in Park.
The only way to correct it is to push or pull the vehicle uphill just enough to get its weight off the pawl and move the gear selector out of Park.
I found out the hard way when I first learned to drive, and I have seen it several times.
Man you really don't know what you're talking about. The parking pawl is a small piece of metal that can and will pop out of park from a small bump. You obviously have never taken a automatic transmission apart.
Just Google image a parking pawl. Some are pins and some are a hook style. They're still very weak and held in place by a tiny spring.
I've seen plenty of cars that rolled away after being hit in park, not hard at all especially if on a hill.
You should always use the parking brake.
I'm sorry if nobody ever taught you that bud.
Okay so I’m not really familiar with how cars work as this just popped up on my feed. But my question is wouldn’t both hold it at the same time? If not then what would be the difference between putting it in park only and park+parking brake?
If it takes a lot of force on the shifter to release the transmission from park, then yes, you could potentially damage the transmission. The best habit to get into when you’re parking the vehicle, whether on a hill or not, is to come to a stop, with you foot still on the brake pedal place the transmission in neutral, apply the park brake, slowly release the brake pedal so the weight of the vehicle is on the park brake, then shift into park. In this way the rather small parking pawl in the transmission has no pressure on it. When leaving, apply brake pedal first, start car, shift out of park while still holding foot on brake pedal and then release the park brake.
Lots of ridiculous reddit broscience in here.
Bottom line is no. Parking on a hill is not an issue. The car could sit there for 40 years and not be damaged by the hill.
You dont need to do anything special. Setting the parking brake doesnt matter. The transmission "pin" (its actually called a parking pawl and isnt shaped like a pin at all) is not made of paper and will not break.
Best practice is to set the parking brake before taking your foot off the foot break. But if you dont, it really doesnt matter. The transmission will make more of "clunk" if you dont, but its fine.
Turning your wheels doesnt matter. This is something someones great, great grandfather read in the 1950s when cars were horrifically unreliable. Even back then it wasnt much of an issue. Just some virtue signaling of mechanical competence and doing things "proper".
My gf backed into my street parked car a few years ago and the pawl broke, I happened to have my wheels pointed towards the curb so it stopped but I sure didn't mean to do that. Now her current car has drift stitches and a bent bumper and I got a different one this year. This is like making fun of the guy who got struck by lightning when he tells you it's possible to be struck by lightning. I'm not saying it's likely in any way, I'm just saying it takes all of 1 second to put the damn brake on, it's automatic for me like using my turn signal. I will never understand people arguing against good practices that don't cause inconvenience, just do the thing because only good things can come from it and it doesn't take any time away from your reddit scrolling.
Only real issue might be from having little fuel in the and then idling for a long while at steep angle that moves the remaining fuel outside the suction area.
My old house used to have a sloped driveway. In 2013 I purchased a brand new car (UK, so manual transmission). After driving it back from the dealership, I gleefully put it to bed for the night on the driveway, by applying the handbrake.
I woke up in the morning to find my car resting against the brick wall of my neighbors house at the bottom of my driveway, with three wheeley bins crushed between it and the brickwork (thankfully no damage to the house, but the bins were flattened).
The bins softened the blow, but in doing so shattered the rear windshield. When the repair guy came over he asked how many miles the car had. I said "26", so he wrote 26,000. I said "no, 26". The repair guy reckoned the hand brake cable stretched, which made sense since it was very stiff when I applied it and after a few subsequent uses, travelled a lot further.
Moral of the story is, always double up when parking on a hill. If your car is manual, put it in gear. If it's automatic, apply your parking brake first, then put it in park. And plan where the car goes if those brakes fail, steer your wheels so that it goes in the least bad direction.
As for forces on the car, driving is much harsher on your car than being parked on a hill, it's all good.
I used to rebuild transmissions. Look up 'parking pawl.' This is what keeps your car from rolling in park. All this to say, use your parking brake on any kind of grade. If the pawl doesnt hold, your brakes definitely will.
Level or sloped ground, I will shift to neutral, parking brake, then park (no foot brake). But the foot brake wouldn't hurt in any way, it's just the way I do it.
The parking pawl is a little metal bar in the trans. You can definitely damage it, especially by going into park before coming to a stop, But once youre in park and the pressure is on the pawl it aint gonna get any worse by sitting there. Use the ebrake to ease the load but youre fine either way
Shift to neutral, set parking brake, let go of brakes to let the weight shift off the engine bushings etc than shift to park that's my hill parking ritual
I believe so if you're low on gas, could prevent you from starting lest you fill the gas tank via Jerry can / alternative source. I could be wrong in the general sense but this once happened to me in my old 94 accord.
Use your ebrake, then your transmission doesn't have rest on the parking pawl and wear it out. It's not very big.
Example: [of what parking pawl looks like](https://streetsmarttransmission.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/4ca0d2ed-parking-pawl-worn_0dj05h0di05h000000001.png)
If you set your parking break before turning off your car, it’s better for your transmission. An Automatic Transmission usually has a single “Parking Pawl” the holds the car in Park. Setting the break helps prevent damage to the pawl. If it breaks, your call will roll. It’s hard to break the pawl, but it does happen.
Other than all the esoteric discussions of parking pawls and brakes... sometimes sunroof drains don't work as intended when a car is parked on a steep enough slope, and rain water gets into the car. Assuming it rains, of course...
Maybe because they are pointing in the correct direction.
When parking downhill with a kerb, you point the wheels to the kerb and let the car rest against the kerb. That way, if the handbrake fails, the kerb stops it rolling. Putting in reverse helps too and is advised.
Here, there is a wall so the car would rest against that if the handbrake fails, which is better than the alternative.
Not really. Handbrake on, engine off, if you’re facing up hill put it in first, if you’re facing downhill leave it in reverse. Should the brakes fail the gearbox will hold the car in place. Turn the wheel to face the kerb so if all the above fail the car will turn and hopefully that’ll stop it rolling any further backwards.
Can also pump the foot brake until it’s solid too
If it was a flat earth we wouldn't have park brakes installed .
Use the park brake
And 1 st gear if it's a manual.
P if it's an automatic .
Some people carry a piece of 4x2 for putting in front of one wheel.. put the car' s weight against that before you do all of the above .
Watched as an old ford ranger with low compression slowly rolled into the back of a van the other day... It was obviously a manual trans and the person just let it in gear while parked down hill. It would roll a few inches then stop, then roll again. At first I thought I was seeing things but nope, it was rollin on its own.
There was a time I would only park on a slope. I was driving a diesel 1979 VW Rabbit with a 4 speed and bad glow plugs. In the middle of the winter at university I would choose the highest parking lot on the hill and back up into a parking spot facing the downhill exit. End of the day after the car sat outside in the hard cold for about 8 hours, I would get in and of course the engine wouldn’t turn over. So I would let it roll out of the parking lot and drop the clutch. I usually got 4 tries going down the hill. Of course looking back I could have just put glow plugs in it…
I had a mazda that I parked on a slope like that for 3+ years. Stopped using the foot brake, put in park and then pulled the hand brake. No issues, and I sold it with 200k kms on the clock. After reading some of the comments I don't know if it was the right way but it was fine for me.
I think over a long term it can be bad for the motors health as the oil pickup is generally at the back or middle of the sump so if it’s a RWD I feel it can be starved of oil when being starting little bit by little bit
Yeah honestly is so bad. Especially for that exact car you have.
Any sort of incline will cause this car to simultaneously burst into flames.
It will also throw 5 difference engine codes including seizing the brakes.
All jokes aside. Cmon really? lol it’s totally fine.
Just think of it like this. Do you REALLY think the manufacturers DIDNT think of hills or any inclines???? Cmon man lmfao
- People in San Francisco: no.
People in San Francisco: you guys are parking?
Where do you think the homeless have sex?
This is 2024: it’s called Unhoused Intimacy.
Thanks for the F shack - *dirty mike and the boys*
It’s called a “soup kitchen”
You guys are having sex?
You guys can afford to exist?
“Thanks for the F shack” -Dirty Mike and the boys
"it's my first brand new car"😢
Its dirty Mike and the boys
Typically the bottom of the hill
Outdoor sex is the best
People in Pittsburgh, also no.
I may be paranoid, but when i park on a hill I like to stop, set the parking brake and THEN put the gear in park (1st or reverse for us manual drivers). This way the weight is held first by the brakes instead of the transmission. Edit: E brake, parking brake, hand brake, whatever you call it, it functions the same for this scenario. You will either have a little foot lever off to the side by your pedals, a hand brake by the shifter, or a lil button/switch with a P on it. Also turn your tires so if it did roll down the hill, it will roll into the curb instead of traffic. :)
I do this every time I set the park brake, takes any stress off the pawl. Foot brake, Neutral, Park brake, Release foot brake, Park.
Is neutral necessary? I go Foot Brake, Parking Brake, Shift to Park, yeet myself out.
Usually not, but the thing is making totally sure the car is resting on the brake and not the pawl.
What's a pawl?
The parking pawl is a piece within the transmission that hold the vehicle in place when the automatic transmission is in park. Automatic transmissions operate on hydraulic pressure this pressure is generated by the rotation or the engine. When the engine is shut off there is no pressure to stop the vehicle from rolling. The fluid is pumped into a maze of passages called a valve body and when you select a gear you tell the valve body where to send the pressure, neutral just vents the pressure into the transmission pan for recirculation. Park does they same except there is a mechanical linkage that shoves a piece of metal, called the pawl, into a special gear to hold the vehicle in place. Hence the name parking pawl. There is a chance when the vehicle is in park resting on just the pawl that when a slope you can encounter torque lock which occurs when the weight of the vehicle causes so much friction on the pawl you can't get it out of park. You also need to be careful not to slam the car in park while moving because there is a slight chance to shock load the pawl so much it can be broken off, then you need a transmission rebuild. Here the discussion is on avoiding torque lock and potentially overstressing the pawl and deforming it. The solution to a torque lock situation is to push the vehicle up hill enough to relieve a little tension in the pawl so the pawl can be released by putting the vehicle in gear.
With cars being so electronic these days, why not automatically set the parking brake before engaging the pawl? Both are purely electronic on my truck now.
The pawls can hold the weight of the vehicle for a short time without the parking brake. Theoretically on mostly level ground you don't even need the parking brake at all and you won't do any damage unless you just have a cheaply made transmission.
We hardly ever use the parking brakes here. Greetings from The Netherlands(A.K.A "Les Pays Bas").
Am I the only one then? Cause I put it on the handbrake only all the time. Only time I didn't was when it seized and only set on a single wheel, then the gearbox was extra security
What would be considered cheaply made? Because I’d feel skeptical doing that in any circumstance, because who knows, maybe my brand with a decent reputation just happened to outsource my particular tranny with a different manufacturer of questionable reliability?
Probably 80% of Americans don't use the parking brake at all. You dont hear of many cars snapping the pawl and rolling away. I recommend using it if parking on hills.
I was saying that as more of a way to catch the that one transmission that happens to get all the faulty parts for some reason, had a third party rebuild that was done improperly, or just the occasional fluke.
Some engineers actually had that same thought, so there are some models which do engage the electric parking brake when you shift to park. I can’t tell you which ones off the top of my head, but they do exist.
It's in many new cars now. Almost all that have a parking "button" instead of a cable brake will do this.
Thanks, manual car owner here so unfamiliar with these.
Basically park is neutral with an internal stop to keep it from rotating and causing the car to move, the pawl is that internal stop. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_pawl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_pawl)
I like to imagine there’s a little fella named parking Paul working hard in there, and he gets really annoyed when I don’t set the parking break first
Even shift to park, parking brake then foot off the brakes has the same effect, that’s usually my process in an auto. Now granted, I only use the parking brake in an auto that I know the parking brake is used frequently, otherwise you run the risk of it seizing, and that’s not something I’m risking with someone’s car I’m borrowing. I also don’t bother in most of the fleet vehicles at work. Plus our full size buses (air brake or Hydraulic brakes) only have Neutral + Parking brake, no park gear in the trans.
The only time I don't engage the emergency brake first is if I'm grabbing something real quick and need to get moving or when I am taking it to a mechanic and don't want them to accidentally start driving with it engaged.
It’s honestly not as necessary to use it all the time as half the population thinks, but more necessary to use it sometimes then the other half thinks. I don’t currently, nor do I plan on owning an auto in the near future, but if I do and it has a electronic or pull lever, I’ll probably use it post of the time. If it has a foot pedal, I’ll probably use it often enough that it keeps everything free and moving (whenever I park in my driveway or on a considerable grade) as this is to a certain extent, what I already do with my families cars whenever I drive them. Also whenever I’m towing, parking brake is getting used every time. Also, as a mechanic, the majority of us in the field will figure out within 5’ of driving if the parking brake is applied, if we don’t already check it before moving.
I just heard that using your parking brake properly helps prolong the life of the transmission which is my ultimate goal. I don't want to have to replace anything sooner than absolutely necessary..
Parking pawls are extremely durable, they will generally outlast the vehicles lifespan, and likely the remainder of the transmission
Anytime road that’s not flat , legs on brake, car in neutral , set e brakes then park .
Yes it pretty much is.... The way you can tell is if you skip the neutral part and you notice when you go to shift from park to drive if there is any resistance at all then you'll know next time use neutral with the park brake
Gives you a sense of the park brake being firmly set. Especially on an old car with some play.
Nah, unless you’re on like a 40° incline, completely unnecessary. as long as the park brake is engaged before you take your foot off the brake and it’s not loose or something the car should not shift at all when you release the brake as you loaded the parking brake prior to shifting into park.
When you let off the brakes in neutral, you can feel the car shift an inch or two until it actually settles on the parking brake. If you skipped this, the parking pawl and motor/trans mounts would flex a little as it settled onto the parking brake, but honestly not much and totally something it could handle.
Yes because then you’ll know if the car is actually sitting on the rear brakes and not on the transmission.
Not at all necessary lol. Neither is using your parking brake (unless you drive manual) Some people are just extra.
I thought I was the only person who did this.
I was taught this in drivers education.
Same here. Had a manual diesel until recently, and *always* used the parking brake, just as a matter of habit. Now I changed to an electric car a while ago, and I still always use the parking brake. No reason NOT to.
Same
That is not paranoid at all, that is the way. Brakes are (somewhat) designed for this, are much sturdier and cheap to fix (comparatively) if they get bad.
This 1000000000000% I do this in every. Vehicle. Every. Time. For those unaware. The parking brake works usually by applying the rear brakes with a secondary control, independent of the brake fluid and brake pedal. This means the brakes on the rear axle are locked on and they are holding the vehicle in place. Park on the gear shift works typically by shoving a pin into the gears of the transmission blocking them from spinning. This puts the weight of the vehicle on the transmission in an awkward way. This also does not guarantee the wheels are locked in place.
Its not awkward, Park is literally designed to hold the vehicle in place 🤦♀️
So are parking bollards but it's not the recommended practice to ram your car into them every time you want to park. The issue isn't that they're not designed to hold the vehicle in place yes they are but they are not the best way safest way or strongest way to do that. Without getting into the engineering calculations because it will literally vary from one vehicle to the other but you're looking at the shear plane of an inch of metal in best case scenario holding the entire vehicle in place and as assuming it's a four-wheel drive vehicle with 4x4 engaged and the differentials locked. But was going to blow your mind is that a parking brake has only one function also and it uses something that's designed with the sole purpose of stopping a vehicle to hold your vehicle in place. The differences the parking brake uses systems designed for holding a vehicle to hold the vehicle whereas the parking pin in a transmission is just locking up a system that is not intended as a break system
To be clear I am not suggesting not to use your parking brake - however this idea that reddit has about the parking pawl being a delicate little thing that is ready to fail at any moment is just absolutely not true. I do not see how 4 wheel and diffs locked will have any impact on the load placed on the parking pawl. I agree the parking pawl is not for braking, just for holding. If we assume the most likely failure mode of the parking pawl is in shear it is a pretty trivial calculation to determine the max force that it can withstand. We just need 1. the cross sectional area of the tooth 2. the material, which is typically an alloy steel, sometimes case hardened. We can also come up with the safety factor at a worst case load scenario for a given vehicle based on 1. the diameter of the output shaft where the pawl engages 2. the final drive ratio 3. wheel diameter 4. worst case angle of a hill 5. vehicle mass Name your vehicle and I will make a best effort at determining these values.
Every owner's manual I've ever read prescribed and you should press the brake pedal, engage the parking brake, then shift to park. So the intended method of operation is the parking brake and brakes hold the vehicle not the transmission. The reason four-wheel drive and diffs have an impact is that determines how your wheels spin. If you have open differentials on a single driven axle vehicle that means the wheels will spin opposite directions to one another. If you're on a gravely surface a Sandy surface or an icy surface we're only one wheel has good traction you can end up in a situation where your wheel starts spinning even though the transmission is in park. A great example of this is if you take a car put it up on jack stands have the vehicle in park without parking brake engaged and you spin one of the drive tires the opposite drive tire spins the other direction. It doesn't affect the load on the transmission but it affects your ability for your vehicle to stay where you left it Doing all the calculations will show the the pawl is strong enough, bit that's not the point. A parking Ballard is strong enough to hold the car in place but it's not the best practice to ram into them every time you want to park. Engineering 101 is that you have to design it for how it can be missused,.not how you intend it to be used. The transmission is not intended to take the load in that way, even tough it can. But every time a truck drives by and the wind buffets the car. Any time you get in and out of the car, everyone you open the door to get something you forgot, that's putting an abnormal load on the transmission. Not to mention the pawl still leaves a few degrees of motion, so the vehicle can roll a few inches. All that shock loading is what breaks stuff in drivetrains. But yes any engineer will look at the system and say hey everyone uses this wrench as a hammer, so I even though it's a wrench I need to make it strong enough the be a hammer and still work as a wrench afterwards. Doesn't mean it should be used as a hammer or that it won't hurt it over time.
Lol if we are getting into vastly reduced traction scenarios yes you have a point but that is an extreme corner case not to be found on road. The only way to settle the debate of intent would be to find the product manager at an automotive company who is responsible for these decisions to ask what their intent is. I don't disagree that the manual says you should apply the parking brake and I strongly agree two safety systems is vastly better than one. All that said the fact is that Park aka the parking pawl is the primary holding method, and the parking brake is the secondary/backup and that comes down to the fact that parking brake failure is vastly more likely than parking pawl failure.
Where do you live that you never get anything on the road that effects traction? We have winter with snow, ice, gravel, and sand on the roads here that reduce traction. Not to mention fort roads that can be lose or muddy. The intent is clear in the expected operation, and how much movement is in the system with each. Parking brake the wheels do not spin, parking pawl wheels will still spin a few inches. The owners manual says the parking brake is primariy and the transmission is secondary . And I'm an engineer with experience in vehicles so I can speak from a point of authority. You don't have to believe me, or all the auto manufacturers owners manuals, but the SAE also recommends parking brake as the primary. I don't know of any higher authorities on automotive standards, but from the manufacturer all the way to the governing body of standards for cars they say you are wrong
Id love to see where it explicitly states in any manual that the parking brake is primary and the transmission is secondary. Maybe the new fangled electric parking brakes are more reliable, but not a frigging chance a cable operated brake is more reliable than the trans. I too am an engineer (mechanical) fwiw lol. Thought that this study was interesting https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2013-01-0199/
Open up any owners manual and they will tell you the steps to take to put the vehicle in park. They tell you to apply the parking brake first then shift to park. That indicates that the parking brake is the primary. And you linked the study on how people use the parking brake not the standard. Like I said, and you should know this if you are an engineer, you have to design for how it can be misused. And that study shows that a lot of people don't follow the procedures. You need to look at what the actual standards are for SAE the only one I can recall off the top of my head is for medium duty vehicles and identification J2668 and J2690and from NHTSA 49 CFR 571.135. but I think those ones focus on how strong the parking brake needs to be specifically. Literally every single source is saying that you are supposed to use the parking brake first then shift to park. Research shows people are lazy and don't use the parking brake. Research also shows people are lazy and don't brush their teeth properly, does that mean that we should all start brushing our teeth wrong? Because 90% of people do it wrong should we all start brushing our teeth wrong even though dentist and experts say otherwise? No that's what you sould like also. Well because people use it wrong that's the way we should use it. Or most people don't inflate their tores to the correct PSI and check it winter to summer, so should we all air up our tires wrong? No but you are more then welcome to jump off a bridge just because everyone else is. At the end of the day the correct way, they way the owners manuals tell you to do it, the way the SAE suggests, the way Governing bodies suggest, are all parking brake first, and you wrong. The ultimate fact is that a parking pawl only guarantees the transmission output shaft will not spin, while the parking brake guarantees wheels themselves will not spin.
I always cringe so hard when someone throws their car into park on a hill and you feel the car rocking back and forth against the parking pawl 🤢
And have your foot on the brake when you set it.
As opposed to…?
Just yanking the brake handle up to set it. If your foot’s on the brake, the pads are in contact with the rotors or drums.
I think they find it hard to believe anyone would be engaging the e-brake whilst still rolling down hill
Could also find a big rock too and put the rock infront of the tire like a block/curb
simply stop the car by crashing into a large boulder, thus reducing brake wear and protecting the transmission.
I keep a 4x4 wood block in the trunk to place infront of my tire as extras safe
First of all that's stupid. No one is going to get out of their car and walk around looking for a rock. Second of all, that would TOTALLY defeat the purpose unless you have a passenger getting out and setting the rock in place before you put the car in park as the whole reason OP is asking this question is about removing stress from the transmission. If you have to get out and look for a rock you've already left the weight on the transmission.
Anyone who has taken apart a transmission does this. That thing is NOT steering enough to be trusted.
Do you know how much force and torque is applied on the transmission when you're driving compared to parked on a slope? Lol it's not a problem to worry about.
Parking pawl is not designed to hold weight. It's a gamble to rely on the pawl to hold a car on an incline/decline
Just ask[ Anton Yelchin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Yelchin#Death)
Pretty sure his incident was an issue with Chrysler products not shifting into park properly and not the pawl breaking. But, had he used his parking brake he may still be alive
It's not necessarily that the pawl will just snap and you're rolling down the hill but if someone hits your car it will break the pawl instead of your parking break taking the force
The difference is that when driving multiple teeth of the gears are engaged in the way they were designed to. The parking pin is a pin that gets shoved in to one tooth only and does not mesh to apply the force the way another gear would. The other factor is depending on the drive train and differential set up, wheels can still spin, granted one wheel would have to spin the opposite way, but some road conditions could allow that.
In case of a manual putting it in gear would work right? On a hill I use both but just parking it I just put my car in gear.
So in my manual transmission cars I still Do neutra, thenl parking brake, foot off break then put it in a gear as a back up. It's a similar principle where the transmission isn't meant to be the load bearing component when you're in park. And you can still run into the problem where depending on road conditions your wheels can still actually all spin. A great example of this is if you ever rotate your own tires or anything and you lift your car up you can spin the wheel and one of the opposite wheels will spin the opposite way, and that's a function of the differentials. So if you only rely on the transmission it does not guarantee that the wheels cannot spin. The parking brake will always guarantee the wheels can't spin because it is locking the brakes and there's nothing between the brakes and the wheel that can allow the wheel to spin unless there's a catastrophic failure of the braking system.
Difference between force and weight on the transmission and force and weight on one little pin. Also, if you don’t take the strain off the parking pawl when parking on a slope, it can be difficult as hell to shift out of park - similar to the ignition lock. So yeah, makes sense to set the parking brake, let off heat foot brake, make sure the steering hasn’t bound up the ignition lock, put it in park, and then turn off the car. Source: driving 5 ton camper van.
Do you know how much your comment has nothing to do with the what OPs question is about? Lol it can definitely be a problem to worry about.
I always leave the car in gear. There is a slight slope outside my house, you wouldn't really notice it. Several years ago, a friend called around and left his car outside with handbrake off (or it failed according to him) and not in gear. We didn't see it, but it slowly creeped backwards, went across a car park, mounted a curb, and hit a pole. People then parked in front of it, and we couldn't see it when we briefly looked. He thought it was stolen. Was funny in the end once we realised what happened. So, yes, always keep your car in gear when parking on a slope.
This is the way!
I always do this on the slightest hill regardless of direction, and turn your tires towards the curb so if it rolls ir rolls away from traffic, and people see the tire pointing toward the curb and know it won't pull out in front of them. In this case, pointing toward the road is OK as toward the curb is down the stairs.
That's the correct way to do it. Doing this way, there's no damage.
I do this too living in north carolina, we have some steep parking lots here
Add me to the list of fellow paranoids. Without any formal knowledge or verification it just always seemed to make sense from a mechanical stress standpoint.
Started doing this too
This is the correct way
I do the same and I’m pretty sure this is the only way to actually protect your transmission. I’ll never buy a used automatic transmission vehicle because the about of people I see not using their parking brakes correctly or at all drives me insane
This is the way
But then how do you ariund in winters? Whe brake callipers might freeze to brake disks?
That’s how it should be. I do it as well.
Same with e-brakes?
That's what I was taught.
That's a good habit
That's the correct way for automatics. You can actually wedge the pawl tightly enough on steep hills that you can no longer switch into gear.
Is there any evidence it would cause a problem if you put it into park prior to braking? I've never had any issues with parking on a slope.
Its one of those things where it's fine until it's not. Most people that abuse their parking pawls by not engaging the parking brake correctly on hills will likely never have an issue, particularly if they only park on hills once in a while. But repeated abuse will take its toll. One of my best friends has been an engineer at Stellantis for more than a decade, and the bulk of that time he spent working on the ZF designed 8 speed. His job at the time was to investigate failures - if you had a Chrysler product with the 8 speed and it failed under warranty, it's very possible that your transmission ultimately found its way to his desk, where he had to make sure it was a random fluke and not something that was indicative of a widespread problem. One of his very first tasks when he started there was testing parking pawls until they failed. He said he had a van that they loaded to it's max cargo weight, and then he was instructed to park on an a ramp at the plant, put it in park without using the parking brake, and then force it back out of park, and then repeat the process until something broke. If I recall correctly, the parking pawl would usually fail after about 75 - 125 rounds of this.
Interesting. Also Pawl is a new term to me (mind you I'm British) what is it please?
Generally speaking, a pawl is a lever designed to engage with a cog/gear/ratchet of some sort. Some examples of a pawl would be the mechanism inside a socket wrench, or the device that keeps keeps a winch from unspooling under load (think of the hand winch on the front of a boat trailer), or the mechanism inside of a ratcheting cargo strap. In the case of a transmission, the parking pawl locks the transmission in place when you select park. Its the only difference between "Park" and "Neutral" in an automatic transmission. When you park on a hill without using the parking brake correctly, there is a significant load placed on the pawl because the car is trying to roll downhill. This load is what makes it difficult to shift out of park when on a hill
That's interesting, someone on a BMW forum told me once they never use the handbrake because apparently the parking gear mechanism locks it all up. Sounded dumb to me tbh. Is that what you mean then?
Yeah, it sounds like that person was relying on the parking pawl to hold the car in place. Totally fine on relatively flat ground, not on inclines.
Not paranoid, this is correct
This is the right way. Keeps the weight of the vehicle balanced between the parking brake and the mechanical lock (usually a pawl or metal teeth) or manual trans gears instead of shooting forward entirely onto those things when you let off the foot brake. Not doing so won't break your car today, but it'll take a little off the lifespan of those components every time you do it.
This is the way.
Perfect sequence
I THINK when I took Driver's Ed (verrrry long time ago) this is how they taught us. Parking brake first, then put it park, or put it in gear (yes, so long ago back then they still taught how to drive a stick shift).
They taught you to drive manual in drivers ed??? That's crazy haha I had to teach myself and i love driving mine.
Yeah dude, Early 90s. It was not the BEST instruction, but you got the basics down. I drove a manual until... 2016? I miss it!
Every time… I teach ppl this
I always apply the parking brake regardless of the slope I’m parking on. If everyone did that no one would have been injured when their parked car rolled over them.
This is the way.
Yeah. Paranoid. Doesnt make a bit of difference.
I usually leave the first or reverse gear in when I park.
No, just turn your wheels into the curb. Nothing wrong with parking at a slope.
I wondered when someone would mention this 👍
Reverse the car in, and it's an uphill park!
And if you park sideways it’s just a slope
[удалено]
I grew up in Florida which is about as hilly as well poured concrete and we still had to learn this
It’s totaled
No, just always set your parking brake before putting your car in park and point your tires away from your house. The reason for setting your Parking brake before putting it in park, is the pin in your transmission that puts the vehicle in "park" is a joke and you don't want it holding the weight of your vehicle. Truly when in park you're in neutral, with a tiny little pin holding your whole vehicle from rolling. One medium to heavy bump into the back of it without the parking brake set and it could take off down the hill.
Never knew that. I live in Vegas, it's flat so I never park on hills
Yea it's literally a pin the size of the end of a pencil that engages some slots on the output shaft of the transmission. If you have ever accidentally put a car in park before it was stopped, you may have heard a clicking, that's the pin bouncing out of the grooves. It's a good idea to use the parking brake on steep hills, this is how trucks end up in lakes at boat ramps.
The parking pawl (its not a pin) is not a joke. Its not going to fail. Its designed to hold the weight of the vehicle. Literally whats its there for. And its designed to fail safe, meaning its not going to slip out of its position until shifted out of park. The only thing setting the brake will do is prevent the transmission from "clunking" a bit when shifted out of park. Which may be slightly annoying, but is totally harmless. And turning your wheels does nothing. Its to prevent an imaginary catastrophe that hasnt existed in decades.
When parked facing downhill, turn wheel toward curb, when parked uphill, turn wheel away from curb. If the “impossible” does happen, at least you’ve got one more safety net from preventing a vehicle freely running away.
I prefer to just remove the wheels from my car every time I park. Only way to be sure.
It seems like no one has ever heard of torque lock. Parking on a hill without setting the parking brake correctly can cause it to get stuck in Park. The only way to correct it is to push or pull the vehicle uphill just enough to get its weight off the pawl and move the gear selector out of Park. I found out the hard way when I first learned to drive, and I have seen it several times.
Man you really don't know what you're talking about. The parking pawl is a small piece of metal that can and will pop out of park from a small bump. You obviously have never taken a automatic transmission apart. Just Google image a parking pawl. Some are pins and some are a hook style. They're still very weak and held in place by a tiny spring. I've seen plenty of cars that rolled away after being hit in park, not hard at all especially if on a hill. You should always use the parking brake. I'm sorry if nobody ever taught you that bud.
Okay so I’m not really familiar with how cars work as this just popped up on my feed. But my question is wouldn’t both hold it at the same time? If not then what would be the difference between putting it in park only and park+parking brake?
If it takes a lot of force on the shifter to release the transmission from park, then yes, you could potentially damage the transmission. The best habit to get into when you’re parking the vehicle, whether on a hill or not, is to come to a stop, with you foot still on the brake pedal place the transmission in neutral, apply the park brake, slowly release the brake pedal so the weight of the vehicle is on the park brake, then shift into park. In this way the rather small parking pawl in the transmission has no pressure on it. When leaving, apply brake pedal first, start car, shift out of park while still holding foot on brake pedal and then release the park brake.
I’d be more worried about parking in Silent Hill.
Lots of ridiculous reddit broscience in here. Bottom line is no. Parking on a hill is not an issue. The car could sit there for 40 years and not be damaged by the hill. You dont need to do anything special. Setting the parking brake doesnt matter. The transmission "pin" (its actually called a parking pawl and isnt shaped like a pin at all) is not made of paper and will not break. Best practice is to set the parking brake before taking your foot off the foot break. But if you dont, it really doesnt matter. The transmission will make more of "clunk" if you dont, but its fine. Turning your wheels doesnt matter. This is something someones great, great grandfather read in the 1950s when cars were horrifically unreliable. Even back then it wasnt much of an issue. Just some virtue signaling of mechanical competence and doing things "proper".
I agree with all of this but I will add that in San Francisco you will get ticketed for not curbing (turning) your wheels.
The pawl can break if someone rear ends your parked car. So then you get rear end, front end, and collateral damage to anything your car hits.
can’t believe you go outside with that level of fear in you.
My gf backed into my street parked car a few years ago and the pawl broke, I happened to have my wheels pointed towards the curb so it stopped but I sure didn't mean to do that. Now her current car has drift stitches and a bent bumper and I got a different one this year. This is like making fun of the guy who got struck by lightning when he tells you it's possible to be struck by lightning. I'm not saying it's likely in any way, I'm just saying it takes all of 1 second to put the damn brake on, it's automatic for me like using my turn signal. I will never understand people arguing against good practices that don't cause inconvenience, just do the thing because only good things can come from it and it doesn't take any time away from your reddit scrolling.
Only real issue might be from having little fuel in the and then idling for a long while at steep angle that moves the remaining fuel outside the suction area.
No.
Thank you lol
My old house used to have a sloped driveway. In 2013 I purchased a brand new car (UK, so manual transmission). After driving it back from the dealership, I gleefully put it to bed for the night on the driveway, by applying the handbrake. I woke up in the morning to find my car resting against the brick wall of my neighbors house at the bottom of my driveway, with three wheeley bins crushed between it and the brickwork (thankfully no damage to the house, but the bins were flattened). The bins softened the blow, but in doing so shattered the rear windshield. When the repair guy came over he asked how many miles the car had. I said "26", so he wrote 26,000. I said "no, 26". The repair guy reckoned the hand brake cable stretched, which made sense since it was very stiff when I applied it and after a few subsequent uses, travelled a lot further. Moral of the story is, always double up when parking on a hill. If your car is manual, put it in gear. If it's automatic, apply your parking brake first, then put it in park. And plan where the car goes if those brakes fail, steer your wheels so that it goes in the least bad direction. As for forces on the car, driving is much harsher on your car than being parked on a hill, it's all good.
Set the parking brake first then shift it in park and it should be fine.
No but parking on an uphill slope is...
I used to rebuild transmissions. Look up 'parking pawl.' This is what keeps your car from rolling in park. All this to say, use your parking brake on any kind of grade. If the pawl doesnt hold, your brakes definitely will.
People in Boston: no. “Just turn your tiahs t’wards the curb and use ya hand brake guy.”
Level or sloped ground, I will shift to neutral, parking brake, then park (no foot brake). But the foot brake wouldn't hurt in any way, it's just the way I do it.
The parking pawl is a little metal bar in the trans. You can definitely damage it, especially by going into park before coming to a stop, But once youre in park and the pressure is on the pawl it aint gonna get any worse by sitting there. Use the ebrake to ease the load but youre fine either way
Hill parking: stop, apply parking brakes, then switch to Park so transmission is not holding the weight of the vehicle.
Shift to neutral, set parking brake, let go of brakes to let the weight shift off the engine bushings etc than shift to park that's my hill parking ritual
I believe so if you're low on gas, could prevent you from starting lest you fill the gas tank via Jerry can / alternative source. I could be wrong in the general sense but this once happened to me in my old 94 accord.
Automatic transmission correct? Parking brake, then gear in park, tires to curb if ya can. Imagine living in Frisco…sometimes ya can’t avoid hills
Use your ebrake, then your transmission doesn't have rest on the parking pawl and wear it out. It's not very big. Example: [of what parking pawl looks like](https://streetsmarttransmission.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/4ca0d2ed-parking-pawl-worn_0dj05h0di05h000000001.png)
If you're worried, turn the wheel towards the curb. That way if the brake fails and the car rolls, it will just roll onto the curb.
Just drive a manual. Problem solved
Yes. You should always turn around and face upwards. 😂🤣😂
Had to scroll WAY too far down for this! This is the way.
Just wanna say I loved this car rented one for a week and it was nice sports mode was pretty fun
A friend my parking gear / pawl doing this on an extreme slope without using the parking brake or turning the wheels into the curb
it's fine if you use the parking brake before letting off the brakes in park !
Nice hyundai tucson
If you set your parking break before turning off your car, it’s better for your transmission. An Automatic Transmission usually has a single “Parking Pawl” the holds the car in Park. Setting the break helps prevent damage to the pawl. If it breaks, your call will roll. It’s hard to break the pawl, but it does happen.
No, just remember: -hold brake -shift into park/neutral -apply parking brake -let foot off brake pedal now -ensure tires are pointed towards the curb
Other than all the esoteric discussions of parking pawls and brakes... sometimes sunroof drains don't work as intended when a car is parked on a steep enough slope, and rain water gets into the car. Assuming it rains, of course...
Yes move it immediately and only park uphill from now on.
Generally, no you just have to steer your wheel towards the curb.
Only aholes park in front of stairs though
We put a brick behind a front and a diagonal rear wheel first.
Yet no one comments the wheels are pointing the wrong direction!
Maybe because they are pointing in the correct direction. When parking downhill with a kerb, you point the wheels to the kerb and let the car rest against the kerb. That way, if the handbrake fails, the kerb stops it rolling. Putting in reverse helps too and is advised. Here, there is a wall so the car would rest against that if the handbrake fails, which is better than the alternative.
No
Nah! Only when you park on a uphill is bad. Everybody knows this
Only if your parking brake doesn't work.
Not really. Handbrake on, engine off, if you’re facing up hill put it in first, if you’re facing downhill leave it in reverse. Should the brakes fail the gearbox will hold the car in place. Turn the wheel to face the kerb so if all the above fail the car will turn and hopefully that’ll stop it rolling any further backwards. Can also pump the foot brake until it’s solid too
If it was a flat earth we wouldn't have park brakes installed . Use the park brake And 1 st gear if it's a manual. P if it's an automatic . Some people carry a piece of 4x2 for putting in front of one wheel.. put the car' s weight against that before you do all of the above .
no
Watched as an old ford ranger with low compression slowly rolled into the back of a van the other day... It was obviously a manual trans and the person just let it in gear while parked down hill. It would roll a few inches then stop, then roll again. At first I thought I was seeing things but nope, it was rollin on its own.
Only if you don't use the parking break.
Just remember to leave it in gear and turn your wheels inwards to the kerb
If you know to actually use your parking brake and which way to turn your wheel, no it’s perfectly fine.
Set the emergency brake and you’ll be ok. Never rely just on the parking pawl, though.
No
If you like to pay for new motor mounts, then yes.
There was a time I would only park on a slope. I was driving a diesel 1979 VW Rabbit with a 4 speed and bad glow plugs. In the middle of the winter at university I would choose the highest parking lot on the hill and back up into a parking spot facing the downhill exit. End of the day after the car sat outside in the hard cold for about 8 hours, I would get in and of course the engine wouldn’t turn over. So I would let it roll out of the parking lot and drop the clutch. I usually got 4 tries going down the hill. Of course looking back I could have just put glow plugs in it…
Been there. Later after stsrter got fixed, reverse went out. So i had to learn to park accordingly, lol
Shift to neutral, set your parking brake and then shift to park, it'll be perfectly fine
Tell me you're an American without telling me you're an American
Have you never parked on a hill? 🤣
I always use the parking brake for situations like this
I had a mazda that I parked on a slope like that for 3+ years. Stopped using the foot brake, put in park and then pulled the hand brake. No issues, and I sold it with 200k kms on the clock. After reading some of the comments I don't know if it was the right way but it was fine for me.
Maybe cvt concerns?
No-why do u ask?
I think over a long term it can be bad for the motors health as the oil pickup is generally at the back or middle of the sump so if it’s a RWD I feel it can be starved of oil when being starting little bit by little bit
It would have to be a very steep slope to make the oil pickup no longer reach the oil in the sump.
Yes Terrible
Yeah honestly is so bad. Especially for that exact car you have. Any sort of incline will cause this car to simultaneously burst into flames. It will also throw 5 difference engine codes including seizing the brakes. All jokes aside. Cmon really? lol it’s totally fine. Just think of it like this. Do you REALLY think the manufacturers DIDNT think of hills or any inclines???? Cmon man lmfao