Stuck E-Brake

[Weazelll]

I have a 2015 PleasureWay Plateau XL. It is built on the Sprinter 3500 chassis. Last weekend I was camping on the Oregon coast and stopped at a wayside on my way home. I parked on an incline and engaged my emergency brake.

When I was ready to leave I pulled up the lever to disengage the emergency brake. I didn't hear or notice anything unusual but when I put it into gear, I realized the emergency brake was still engaged! I pulled up on the e-brake lever and found I did not have the normal tension and "ratchet" noise. It moved up and down freely and the brake did not release, of course.

I was just about ready to call for a tow but tried it one more time. This time I pulled on the lever harder than before and felt it "pop" when it reach the apex. That did the trick and the emergency brake was released!

I'm a bit afraid to engage the emergency brake now and wondered if anyone else has experienced this and what you may have done. I'm still under warranty so, taking it into a dealer seems like a no brainer but thought I'd check the collective wisdom of this forum first.

Thanks for any insight you may have.

Peter

 

[Carolann]

Once you've engaged the brake, the handle will move freely up and down by design so that you can get it out of the way when you swivel the seat.

 

[Rock Doc]

Peter,

I have a 2014 Pleasure Way Plateau TS on a 2013 Springer 3500 chassis, and I often have this same issue. It seems to be almost always when I put the vehicle in gear before releasing the parking brake. When this happens, I can get it to release typically by engaging and disengaging the lever up and down to cycle the brake lever. Sometimes it's a situation where the last bit of the lever doesn't quite disengage the parking brake warning light switch, even though the brake itself is actually disengaged.

Regardless, I've found that I can virtually always avoid this problem by disengaging the brake before putting the vehicle in gear.

Rock Doc

 

[Weazelll]

Thanks Rock Doc! I know I had forgotten the e-brake and didn't disengage it until after putting it into gear. I bet that was the cause of my problem.

 

[Art Gray]

Mine stuck on a 2020 Tiffin Wayfarer, too. I finally put it into drive and gave it some throttle. It then released with a loud bang. Kind of crude, but it got me on the road. Would suggest that one should use the "park" function, rather than the parking brake. If you do use the PB, try not to really pull it on. Gentle does it!
Art

 

[Calsun]

With the Winnebago Navion the parking brakes must be set to be able to lower the auto levelers and to extend the slide out. Need to see if someone can disable this interlock mechanism. Our Navion is stuck at a RV storage yard and it would be worse if we were out dry camping and hundreds of miles from any Mercedes Sprinter service shop.

My 2001 Mercedes coupe had the transmission stuck in park with a failed shifter mechanism. Turned out that this Mercedes engineering defect went back more than 10 years. It was the last Mercedes car I will ever own. Starting to feel the same way about the new Navion/Sprinter.

 

[Sprintythetank]

Our 2005 Pleasureway parking brake got seized and after climbing under the centre I found the splitter (1 cable from front that pulls a balance bar that equalizes pulling both left and right brake cables ) RUSTY, I backed that off manually from there to get going before going in for service.