A couple of weeks ago I had new rear pads fitted to my Vectra by motosave.

Its been parked on fairly level surfaces since. Today my wife parked it on our drive which has a slight slope to it. We went out this evening to find the car resting up the house. There is a fair bit of damage to the drivers side on the front.

Now we have not had any issues before the pads were changed on the rear. Have motosave messed something up here? We tested the handbrake again after reversing back from the house and with it on it rolled forwards again.

I am very angry and guess I will be calling motosave in the morning to get them to fix it and then seeking money to sort the damage out.

Vauxhall had issues with the hanbrake on the Vectra C. Is it on this recall list?

http://www.vosa.gov.uk/vosa/apps/recalls/searches/search.asp

I should think that unless the garage is totally incompetent, they could fit a set of brake pads correctly.

Always a good idea to leave the car in gear on slopes

Out of habit, i've always put the car in gear.

i'm sure it mentions to leave it in gear in the vehicle handbook

the rear pads are probably not even bedded in yet , so will have less bite on the rear disc , lus they could be of questionable quality with regard to friction mateials used

a lot of cars suffer from this, through normal driving the brake discs expand slightly as they heat up. handbrake goes on nice and firm, then the discs cool down and contract and now there is not enough pressure applied to the the discs and it rolls away.... simple physics

On another note, I find the best way to apply the handbrake is to press quite firmly on the brake pedal, whilst pulling the handbrake up.

Makes pulling the lever up easier, aswell as giving a better bite on the discs.

Considering this is a known issue with disk handbrakes I don't know why they dont use a small drum brake inside the rear disk to stop it happening. My old Pug had this system and it wouldn't budge an inch with the handbrake applied.

Considering this is a known issue with disk handbrakes I don't know why they dont use a small drum brake inside the rear disk to stop it happening. My old Pug had this system and it wouldn't budge an inch with the handbrake applied.

All the Pug/Citroen I know of had either rear drums with handbrakes or just plain old discs with a handbrake that wouldn't lock on until a couple of knotches up (eg no knotches at the lowest point). That latter item was due to Xantia's that moved as even the BX had all round discs and front disc handbrake.

FWIW it is done on some cars (certain scoobys) but the reason most people don't is servicing and manufacturing costs.

my mums partner has a vectra and all he got on the recall was a sticker to stick on the visor about how to apply the handbrake.