Went for a quick drive to the local Tesco earlier today, probably 10 miles round trip, at a briskish pace. Parked up on my Girlfriends sloping drive (about 20 degrees). About 30mins later we heard a bang and left the house smartish to find the Fabia had reversed into the van parked outside the house opposite! Not much damage to the van but the furby's rear bumper is badly scratched and has a 10" split along the top edge. Imagine if a child had been walking past!!

Turned out, like an idiot I had forgotten to put it in gear perhaps for the first time (last time too) since buying it. The worrying thing is that it held really well whilst we unloaded the shopping, no telltale creaks, groans or movement that would have alerted me to a problem.

Does the handbrake operate on the same discs and pads via cable? If it does, I could imagine the slight squeaking noise I hear at walking pace from time to time (mentioned by a few peeps on other threads) which I assume is a slight binding of the rear brakes (going to mention at service next month) could be part of the cause.

If the brakes are binding slightly wouldnt it heat up the rear discs more than is normal causing expansion of the discs? I apply the handbrake which does its job until the discs cool and shrink back to normal no longer providing enough friction to hold the car. Bang...

Has anyone else made this mistake? Am I being hard on myself and its actually Skoda's design fault?

ps I am really p$ssed @ff but not sure who with yet though it feels like prob my fault

Could be the opposite..

Handbrake not quite fully applied on hot brakes. When they cool down the pads / discs contract and lose grip. The rest is history.

My car is always parked in gear, and left with the steering pointing on full lock to the kerb.

The sqeaking brakes is quite a common fault, not normally caused by binding though, its usually just a resonance that goes through the calipers during light applications, VAG used to do rubber damper weights to eliminate it but dont seem to bother anymore.

The brake noise is when accelerating from rest til about 15-20. Pressing the pedal stops it. Is that the same symptom Ross? Not really worried about it til this incident, though its unlikely to be related. Driver error!!

Am I right saying the rear bumber is about

Richard the squeak could be the caliper not correctly releasing, Ross told methe cure for this and its a case of copper grease on the carrier/caliper interface. Yep warm rear disc's willdo what you had. I always after any run that envolves parking on a slope but on the handbrake like usual and then at least 1 extra notch and if steep then 2 notches. Personally I'd rather had a stretched cable!

Richard the squeak could be the caliper not correctly releasing, Ross told methe cure for this and its a case of copper grease on the carrier/caliper interface. Yep warm rear disc's willdo what you had. I always after any run that envolves parking on a slope but on the handbrake like usual and then at least 1 extra notch and if steep then 2 notches. Personally I'd rather had a stretched cable!

Thanks, I'll try that tonight see if it stops the noise. Think I will try to do a before and after drive, same route etc then see how hot the rear discs are. If there is a marked difference maybe the effort will be worth while, though I doubt I will be leaving it out of gear again!

Could be the opposite..

Handbrake not quite fully applied on hot brakes. When they cool down the pads / discs contract and lose grip. The rest is history.

My car is always parked in gear' date=' and left with the steering pointing on full lock to the kerb.[/quote']

Always pretend you're on one of those hills in San Francisco