denwood
Well-known member
I've noticed that when putting our 2018 LEAF SL in park with E-pedal engaged, the brakes remain locked on all four wheels. This became obvious when doing brake service as all four wheels were locked with brakes applied on the hoist with the car powered off.
I guess you can call this a built in electronic e-brake. The down side of this behaviour occurs during long term storage, particularly after washing the car. The pads/rotors stick as flash rust covers the rotor. I'm not sure that leaving the brake system pressurised (think flex hoses) for a long period of time is so great either. I don't normally use the parking brake when parked level in the garage.
The fix is to either turn off the E-pedal before putting the car into park, or just shift to neutral (with E-Pedal engaged), then power the car off...assuming you are not on a hill!! In this case the parking lock pawl still engages physically in the gearbox, but brake pressure relaxes. If parking on a slope, you should apply the parking brake first, before placing the car into park to avoid leaving pressure on the parking pawl...no point in stressing that component.
Thoughts?
I guess you can call this a built in electronic e-brake. The down side of this behaviour occurs during long term storage, particularly after washing the car. The pads/rotors stick as flash rust covers the rotor. I'm not sure that leaving the brake system pressurised (think flex hoses) for a long period of time is so great either. I don't normally use the parking brake when parked level in the garage.
The fix is to either turn off the E-pedal before putting the car into park, or just shift to neutral (with E-Pedal engaged), then power the car off...assuming you are not on a hill!! In this case the parking lock pawl still engages physically in the gearbox, but brake pressure relaxes. If parking on a slope, you should apply the parking brake first, before placing the car into park to avoid leaving pressure on the parking pawl...no point in stressing that component.
Thoughts?