Hello-

I am new to this forum and have a question about my 2008 LR3 with 83,000 miles. This morning when I tried to release the park brake I heard a loud notice and the display gave me an error stating "park brake fault". Currently park brake is applied and I cannot get it to release. I read the manual and it stated that if I remove the coin box next to the transmission shifter and reach out to the manual brake release cable and pull the loop with some sort of a hook which should release the brake. I did that but I cannot get the park brake to release. The cable pulls out about 3 inches but does not release the brake.

Tried to put the car in Drive and Reverse and slowly tried to give gas/accelerate but the brake has a very strong hold and car did not move at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

did you look up how to put it in service mode for park break?


I guess mine needs service since the yellow lite came on today

 

I had to get my car towed to the Land Rover dealer and they said the eBrake module was jamed. It would not release the cable that applies the brake so they had to cut the cable to get the brake to release. They put in a new brake module....total cost $1450

I spoke to the mechanic who worked on my car and he said he has seen this happen quite a bit so not too uncommon. No wonder why manual release would not work.

 

That sounds like more than 2x the amount I paid for my own EPB module update a few years ago. Yikes...

 

I JUST had this happen to me yesterday. So sorry for your loss ($$$). But I was able to release the brake (actually, a co-worker was able to do it). I put the truck in "D" and moved is a few hundred feet to see if that would release the brake and clear the dash and fault message. Though it moved, the truck was resisting, but the red blinking "PARK" or amber "BRAKE" lights didn't go away.

It takes a lot of strength (my experience) to disengage the parking brake using the hook and screwdriver method advised in the manual. Basically, if the cable has moved at all, at least 2-3 inches, then you've disengaged the brake.

I put it in reverse, drive, neutral, and got another message that the brake is not on, that I need to lift to activate....so the parking brake was definitely not engaged and my truck fully operational. The fault message just wouldn't go away. But even with that, I still had the truck towed to my guys. I didn't know what else might be affected.

Today, I was told (let me see if I can repeat it...) that a motor was stripped and that leads to the fault message...the computer is trying to communicate with a broken motor that controls the parking brake (what happened to good old-fashioned clicking levers?!?), but the actual parking brake is fully disengaged, and my truck is safe to drive.

My choices were to never ever try to use the parking break (which, apparently, I used too much...very unnecessary in my flatland daily happenings), continue to see the fault, and just live with it...orrrrr

Start by getting the motor replaced and see if that takes care of the fault. If that doesn't work, then there are other things that will need to happen, and most of the cost is in the labor to diagnose the problem. Looking at up to $2,200 for the worst case scenario for replacing motor and several sets of related parts.

The previous owner may have never used the brake at all, and then I just use it all the time. Maybe it has a life-cycle is 40K rounds...maybe not. Maybe it was always iffy, but never used enough to be symptomatic until now...

Don't really know the genesis; only know that I want that fault message to go away and a parking brake that I will now only use 5-10 times a year.

 

If the wheels won't release even after almost ripping the cable out, then the shoes may have delaminated and be jamming the drum or as a result of poor adjustment, the EPB motor has run to the end and got stuck.

I believe there is usually some warning of this when applying the EPB, something like the sound of a herd of cats in a tin bucket. Not mistakable for a normal sound ;-)

On the UK forum, one bright spark has figured out how to potentially save $$$$ by unjamming it. But not everybody has a lift or wants to climb around underneath.

DISCO3.CO.UK - View topic - How To - EPB repair/Unjam + Relatch

 

Just a note to revive this thread.

You have to pull HARD on the cable when the vehicle is parked and NOT running with key OFF.

I had to knee on the passenger seat for leverage and yank quick and fast.
Doesn't seem like it will budge, then you will hear a spring give way.

Vehicle starts and is movable, PB red dash light flash.
Just don't use the PB until it is repaired.

Just may be the worlds most expensive PB to replace!

 

As a side note to this very old thread, if you get the 'screeching cats' sound when setting the parking brake the first thing I would do is try disconnecting the battery. Sometimes this will release the brake. I've had it happen twice on mine and been able to reset it that way without resorting to the cable which I too have heard is very hard to actuate by hand.

 

When mine last screeched....years ago, just turning off the engine for a while and re-booting the system allowed me to release the EPB.

 

The screeching is also usually symptomatic of a parking brake that is not adjusted correctly, causing the EPB module to operate outside normal range, which eventually causes it to jam. Usually the brake pads are too loose, causing the EPB to have to spool in far more of the cable to get the required engagement (it confirms engagement through cable torque). Eventually this leads to the EPB running out of adjustment and jamming against the end of its travel. If you have the screech, it might be worth it to check your shoe adjustment in the rotor following the correct procedure before it jams the EPB module.