To start off, I know that for my 2002 Jaguar X-Type, there was a recall for the parking brake lever not supplying enough force on the shoes to supply a stopping/holding power.

Well, needless to say, I bought my car with 112,000 miles on it or so, and I don't know if the recall has been done on it or not. My first question is; Is there a way to find out? The nearest Jaguar dealer is over 100 miles away, and I rather not make the trip for nothing.

Anyways, since I've owned the car, I originally would use the parking brake as well as keeping it in 2nd gear. Never had any problem with it. Well, there was a couple times that I probably drove just about less than a quarter mile with the parking brake on. Ouch. Well one day, when I park on a hill and tried it with just the parking brake, it it did nothing.

Did I wear out the shoes or is it the lever acting up? Should I worry about buying shoes at now 133,000 miles? Surprisingly this is my first car, so I'm not sure when to replace parking brake shoes, if ever.

 

Check out this thread from last year... it'll show you who to contact
Gary

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...d-sheet-54031/

 

theoutcast, your parking brake and the normal stopping pads are one in the same. There are no separate parking brake pads. I bet if you pay attention to the e-brake lever, you will notice that you can pull it up very easily all the way to the stop. This is a sign that one of your calipers is sticking and it is causing the balancing beam to shift. What is happening is one of your calipers is binding up for the e-brake lever. I have this problem a lot with my car (I go through a caliper a year on average). If you lift up the car on one side then look under where the e-brake lever is, you will see where a cable comes down from the e-brake and then goes to a piece of metal about 6" wide or so and then you have the 2 e-brake cables (one to each wheel) coming off of that. It should be parallel to the rear bumper. What you will probably notice is that it will be pointing towards one of the rear wheels. The one it is pointing to is the wheel with the bad caliper. You can prove this by removing the wheel, releasing the e-brake (make sure the wheels are blocking accordingly so the car doesn't roll) and then you can take your finger and push on the e-brake lever (has a steel cable running to it on the caliper) and it will move a little more towards the rear of the car.

If you need any more info, let me know.

 

So if you have a caliper that sticks does that mean that when you go to stop normally you are only stopping with 3 calipers? Or does it only stick if you use the e-brake?

 

Trevor, normally when a caliper sticks, it will not stick such that it will not extend. Quite the opposite. It will tend to stick with the piston extended, applying the brake. Think of it this way, it is only vacuum that is pulling the piston back, but you have over 800 psi of pressure pushing the piston out. So, applying the brake will normally overcome any stickiness the piston has in the caliper. I'm sure there are situations that can arise and this will not hold true, but I think you will find that 99.9% of the cases, this is what happens.

I don't think you would really notice a single caliper sticking such that it failed to engage. You might possibly feel it if it was one of the front calipers as this would tend to cause the steering wheel to want to turn every time you applied the brakes hard.