Heyup ladies and gents,

SWMBO has a 2010 Clio 1.5 Diseasel lease car, it has recently come back from the main dealer service and the handbrake is so slack that its having to be pulled almost vertical when parking on a hill and the footbrake seems to have lost all "bite" unless you press it down to the boards. Fortunatley they have removed the dreadful Eco Friendly tyres which made driving in the rain/snow/mild drizzle an exercise in controlling skids, so at least they have improved one thing.

Obviously as its a lease car we dont want to be spending any money on it ourselves, however SWMBO is a bit concerned regarding the handbrake, as she parked up the other day on a mild incline and found the car was rolling backwards and had a right old kerfuffle on getting the handbrake tight enough to hold the car.

As such i was wondering if anyone knew how to, or had any links to information on, adjusting the handbrake on this particluar model of Clio as i would like to get it sorted out for her.

Cheers all

You could always put it in Gear on a slope to stop it creeping.

The hanbrake is adjusted at the lever on those, but you need to remove the cowls etc, it's just a pair of cables with a nut and lock nut on the ends.

My advice is to leave it well alone unless you know what you are doing. Also it's worth mentioning it to the dealer that serviced the car.. I'd be disappointed if a car left the dealers with a slack handbrake.

I have found over the years that the only way to adjust handbrakes is to remove the rear wheels and drums and check that the auto adjusting mechanism is working correctly (most seldom do!) By only adjusting the cable you vary rarely improve the effiency you just decrease the number of clicks the lever moves.I would always remove the drums, manually adjust the auto adjusters until you can just slip the drum back on and finaly adjust cable (forgot to say let the cable adjustment right off before doing the job). This has always worked for me and have done it hundreds of times. Hope this helps but obviously if a lease car the dealer should carry out.