Parking Brake Accidently Left On

[gurjot]

I bought a 2001 LX470 couple of days ago and was driving it home from the previous owner's home. As I was not familiar with the controls of the SUV I accidently left the parking brake on. Previous owner did not pull the parking brake all the way up so I did not notice. I had to press the accelerator slightly to get it moving in Drive but as I was new to the SUV I did not think much of it. Anyway after 5 miles of driving I noticed the red brake light on the dash and disengaged the parking brake. Pulled off freeway and noticed that both rear wheels were hot. Drove the SUV home and it is working ok i.e. brakes are working fine including the emergency brake. No vibration etc from rear wheels.

What damage did I cause here and what to look out for?

Is the emergency brake and the foot brake the same i.e. do they both connect to the same pads or is the emergency brake connected to a seperate set of pads like other cars. Could the heat have caused any damage to wheel bearings, axle etc. It was hot but there was no smoke when I stopped the SUV.

Another question - Previous owner got Lexus dealer to hook up non Lexus DVD player with the roof mounted display. He did it to protect his warranty. He told me he was not able to get dealer to put in Lexus system as it can only be put on new SUV. Do not know the truth here. Anyway SUV has the Mark Levinson system with CD changer. In order to play DVD voice via the Mark Levinson system I have to tune to FM 78.5. Is there a way to hook up directly. Can I buy the Lexus system and hook it up myself and will that play through the SUV sound system or is that also via FM tuning setup.

thanks for your responses - not a good start. Wife, I and kids love the SUV the kids escpecially like the DVD

-gurjot

2001 LX470(family)

1984 190E (mine)

2000 Accord (wife)

[Lexus Master Tech]

The E-brake is the same as the foot brake. The e-brake is a different set of shoes, inside the rear rotor. I doubt you did any serious damage, except wear some of the lining down......cant really say anything about the DVD, but what he told you is probably correct.

[bartkat]

You probably didn't do any damage. If the E brake engages and releases ok now, then not a problem.

[Jim_Chow]

The e-brake are drum brakes behind the rear rotors. Whether you did any "damage" depends on how the prev. owner treated them. My wife did the same thing (drove about 55mph for 5-6 miles) on my '03 w/ 56K mi. I pulled off the rear left rotor to check the e-brake shoes. They measured 3mm thick, wear was uniform (no thin spots). I also measured the inside of the back of the rotor, and it was easily in spec, barely showing any wear. FYI, the factory spec is 4mm for new shoes, 1mm for the min thickness. I doubt you did any damage, just let the rotor cool before engaging the e-brake. If you engage the brake while in reverse (say, backing out of your driveway) while holding down the button, the should auto-adjust (at least normal rear drum brakes do when you brake while moving backwards).

[PitbullLX964]

If you engage the brake while in reverse (say, backing out of your driveway) while holding down the button, the should auto-adjust (at least normal rear drum brakes do when you brake while moving backwards).

Yep mine auto-adjust while pulling it up in reverse. You should have seen it when i adjusted my ebrake one day on my street. My neighbor was standing in his front yard as im backing down my street pulling up my E-Brake making it click. I got done and pulled in my driveway and this guy had the weirdest look on his face. So i walked over and explained what i was doing to him and he just looked at me like...what the hell? I told him dont worry about it one day you might understand...i think he is still puzzled to this day.