schalliol

I use my electronic parking brake every day. It seems most people I observe in the "wild" don't use their parking break unless they're on a hill or use a manual. My understanding is that these brakes take the pressure off the transmission (or other components). Everything seems to work great, but I wonder if others do the same, especially since it just seems likely that a manual brake might be able to engage/disengage more times than an electronic one without fault.

A6Gary

I would have preferred a manual levered parking brake as my previous Audis had to minimize a potential malfunction. But the C6 doesn't allow that option.

Eric5412

I used mine 2 or 3 times in the last 3 1/2 years. No drivetrain problems in my 25k miles. I never thought about the pressure on the trans,you got me thinking that I should start using it.

KevinGary

I have used it every day for the last 4+ years in my 05 4.2.

STEALTH_6

I use it everyday when parking...

jazznuts699

hmmm... i use it on occasion but maybe i should use it more often...

BlueSander

I have no idea how it's getting pressure from the the trans as you said. I always thought it's design just like a normal hand break except it's controlled electronically with either 0 or 100% breaking force.

BlueSander

Oh, I see what you're trying to say. WRONG! For an automatic trans, once you put your car in P, the pressure on the trans is fixed. Applying E-brake then, will just look your car in that position with that fixed pressure onto the trans. The only way you will 100% sure that there is much less pressure on the trans is to use your foot and break the car, put it in N and apply E-brake --> least pressure on trans and then put the car in P.
lol, we have designed the trans to handle any spirits on the road, I don't think parking the car would hurt your trans in any way lol

jinwa

I use the e-brake anytime I park on a non-flat surface.
If you stop on the grade of a hill, put the car in park, take your foot off the brake pedal and the car will move in the downhill direction until the transmission holds the car. Then when you take the car out of park the transmission is "stiff" to shift out of park. Do the same thing but set the e-brake before releasing the brake pedal and the tranmission will not bind or be "stiff" when shifting back into drive from park. To me that certainly feels like less torque or unneccessary pressure on the transmission. Will it make any difference in the life of the transmission? I don't know, but I do like when it shifts into drive nice and easy.

schalliol

Interesting thoughts, everyone. I took 1 minute and did some Googling, Wikipedia (not really an auto authority) recommends the parking brake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_transmission