So I've had my CPO 997.1 for a couple of weeks now and I pulled in to a car park the other day and applied that handbrake as I usually do and the car started to creep a little. I yanked the brake and it stopped but I had to put a tiny bit of grunt to get the brake up one more notch to catch properly.

I took it back to the dealer today and asked them to sort it. Half an hour later the service center boss man comes back and tells me than there is nothing for him to adjust and he tried a few other similar year cars and they all felt the same. He told me there is no cable to tighten on this model car. So I just have to live with it…

Bull or not?

 

My guess? Next time you drive pull up gently on the brake lever a dozen times for a few seconds every five minutes while in motion. Why? This will wear in the emergency brake pads, and give them better grip when used for parking.

I'm "sure" this is the case on our cars and will solve your problem. How else can you explain these brake shoes?

I'm amazed the dealer didn't know this assuming I am correct.

If I am correct there most certainly IS a way to adjust things. See part number 2 in diagram? That's an adjustment screw.

Also? It's impossible to believe that a cable-operated system has no adjustment for the cable mechanism! Gotta be total BS, in my HUMBLE opinion, of course

 

he is an idiot. handbrake cable has to be adjusted - pads are most likely fine but there is a hole in a rear rotors and via that hole they do adjust handbrake lever - it has to do full grip at 3rd-4th click. mine was way off too when i got the car and i forced them to do it.

 

When my car was new, my parking brake was also not holding the car as it should. It clearly had an issue, it needed to be pulled up way higher than it should and even then it was not sufficient to hold the car on an incline (e.g. waiting at a stop light in the hilly district in San Fran). I took the car to the dealer, who told me the parking brake could not be adjusted and that they found nothing wrong. Curiously, from that point on the parking brake worked as it should. To this day I remain convinced that it was fixed but recorded as a "could not reproduce", perhaps because my car was still in the window where a fault would have shown up in the initial quality statistics. Anyway, mine didn't work either and the dealer clearly did do something as it has been fine ever since...

 

The e-brake may have self adjusting and Edgy01 can chime on this.

The 911 e-brake is a drum brake but I prefer not using it unless I absolutely need to. On flat surfaces, especially if the wheels are hot, it's best not to apply the e-brake to avoid warping. This is not a recommendation not to apply the e-brake, just my preference.

 

The self adjusting bit sounds familiar - the service guy was waffling a lot.

How do you stop the roll without the handbrake? Leave it in gear?

 

Always in gear of course. 1st gear when front up hill, reverse when front down hill. Steering pointed accordingly. On a hill I do apply the e-brake.

 

I'm shocked that the service guy said that they're not adjustable. He must be new to cars! As you can see from the exploded engineering drawing, there is clearly a typical wheel to adjust it with a screw-driver through an access hole in the rear brake hats. (It's only been that way since the 1930s). That's the same way drum brakes have been adjusted for decades--the parking brake on 911s are essentially drum brakes.

 

Self adjusting brakes can be adjusted without
going under neath the car. Find a empty parking lot.
Run the car in reverse and stop it with the hand brake.
Do this about three times. Your hand brake should
be better.
Paul

 

I rarely applied the handbrake on any of my previous manual transmission cars and I don't plan to on my new-to-me 997. I only use it when on a steepish hill. For flat surfaces and small hills, I always leave it in 1st. But, as ADias says, that's not a recommendation as much as a personal preference.