Does anyone know of a way to disable the EPB. By disable, I mean that I would like to prevent it from automatically engaging each time the car is put into Park.

I have had this system repaired twice and find it to be of dubious value.
Thanks

 

I don't know If I would do that. Do you ever park on an incline? There is another problem that may be worse if you disable the parking brake. The linkage has a reputation for problems, especially after trying to put it in gear on an incline.....

 

I live in the coastal area of new jersey. Nary an incline to be found anywhere. The ideal solution would disable the automatic features of the EPB while still allowing me to manually engage the parking brake.

 

I wouldn't recommend it because the EPB is a safety feature! Should you have brake trouble you can use the EPB while moving. Try it if you wish - it should be safe. Each pull (above a smallish mph) applies the EPB a bit harder so you can brake gently or hard.

If you really want to disable it, make sure it's retracted and pull its fuse. You may get errors/warnings, I don't know. But, for the safety aspect, I wouldn't pull that fuse.

 

Thanks
I certainly appreciate the safety aspect although in all my years I have never had to nor heard of anyone who needed to engage a parking brake while driving. I was hoping for a way to overide the automatic engagement only, not the manual engagement. I'm not an auto engineer, but I'm guessing that "something" is telling the EPB subsystem that the transmission has been shifted into or out of P causing the EPB to engage or disengage as required. Can this "something" be disabled or can the signal to the EPB subsystem be derailed?

I would imagine that pulling the fuse would work but as you note, it would completely disable the brake and probably trigger annoying messages.

 

The EPB is basically a Bowden cable driven by a motor which is activated by the EPB CM (control module). That CM is on a computer bus (PWM, I think) so you'd have to prevent some message packets at certain times. My way of saying: probably not practicable. Sorry.

Or... you might try stopping the activating voltage reaching the motor. But the CM looks for the current being not too low and not too high, to diagnose faults and the expected rise when the brake is on (or maybe fully off). So... expect errors.

Other ideas anyone?

Oh, and if it's used hardly ever, it'll likely seize of course (the cable, caliper and/or motor, I'd guess).