How to know if your Handbrake needs adjustment?
Let me set the scene…my wife meets up with an old girlfriend at the pub after work. She parks in the carpark directly opposite her friend’s car. The girls have a light beverage, then leave the pub and walk to their cars only to find that my wife’s car has rolled forward and into the front of her friend’s car…oops!
This example shows that you need to pay particular attention to the the tension of your handbrake. My wife said that she thought she had pulled the handbrake all the way up, but in fact it was just one click away from the top. It came to light that for a while she was parking without the handbrake on full because she thought that she had raised it high enough according to how tight it felt to her. That last click would have been very tight and so she never knew there was a “last click.”
So how do you know if your handbrake needs adjustment? The average number of handbrake clicks from down to up should be between 5 and 8. Anything above 8 could suggest that your handbrake needs to be made tighter and likewise, less than 5 clicks means it’s too tight and can cause your rear brakes to drag.
The next time you are parked on a slope make sure you have your handbrake all the way up, otherwise you could end up in an embarrasing situation like my poor wife!
I should probably say that if you have parked on a slope and realised your handbrake needs adjustment, keep you car parked in gear to help prevent it from rolling…then give me a call 
Tags: checking a faulty handbrake, how to check your handbrake