Had a rather unsettling experience with my new (2 month old) VRS this evening.

Parked up at nursery car park facing downhill at the top of a slight incline & sat in driver's seat while my wife went in to collect our daughter.

Waited about 10 mins with no incident. As they came out & approached the car I got out & opened the rear passenger door ready to put the little one in & as I turned round, to my horror, saw my pride & joy (that's the car) slowly begin to slide away from me down the slope.

Instictively threw out a hand & grabbed the C pillar to try & halt it, to no avail.

Dashed round to the driver's side as the car was steadily picking up speed, flung the door open, leaped in & hit the foot brake.

Thankfully the car came to a stop with the front end about 2 feet from a brick wall.

In hindsight it was a bit of a stupid place to park considering the car park was covered in ice, just glad I'm not taking the only new I've ever owned back to the dealer for a new front end

Won't ever make that mistake again!

Wow lucky save! Would be a horrid thing to see happen to your brand spanker! Mine is fast approaching 2 years old and to me its still a new car (going by mileage its not far off) :(

offer ur services as a goalie...a few prem teams need a new one of them based on a few howlers this season lol

Scary. I have noticed the handbrake on the Octavia isnt that great unless you give it just an extra tweak; mine will normally go up one notch on the ratchet after being put on using the button.

This sort of thing isnt such a problen with DSGs though, a locking pin locks up the diff as soon as its put into park (can sometime hear it engage; car shouldnt move even with the handbrake off; wouldnt want to put strain on the transmission but reassuring to know.

Instinctively leave all cars I own in gear when stopped. Never trust a handbrake over a nice big engaged cog.

Instinctively leave all cars I own in gear when stopped. Never trust a handbrake over a nice big engaged cog.

Indeed was always taught to leave a car in 1st if pointing uphill and reverse if down; expect id have had a runaway by now if I hadnt particularly given that my first two cars were italian!

Good save

Very interesting thread and one I was about to start myself.

My driveway is fairly steep (but we are not taking about a downhill ski slope here). My previous Polo handbrake would never give enough grip and the car would start to creep forward. Now have the Blackline and the same thing happens!!!! You get out of the car and hear a few creaking noises from the rear wheels where the hand brake cables engage.

I am sure that I read somewhere that cars with rear disks are worse for this and actually cars without rear disks perform better. But what is unsettling is that it is extremely dangerous - you are either going to damage your car, damage your house/structure or worse still knock down a family member.

I always put into first gear when parking up on the driveway but if I need time to put family into the car I come out of the driveway into the cul-de-sac which is nice and flat.

I think this is an inherent problem with VW/Audi/Skoda cars.

I am sure that I read somewhere that cars with rear disks are worse for this and actually cars without rear disks perform better.

Not all have this problem, just ones that use the rear calipers as the handbrake, like VAGs. You go for a drive, the brakes heat up, you stop, put the handbrake on, discs cool and shrink and it can slip. Some cars (like Subarus) have a small drum brake alongside the rear disc brakes just for the handbrake, so they don't suffer from this problem.

I always leave it in first if not on perfectly flat ground. Didn't think it cared whether it was first or reverse as they both do exactly the same thing.

Not all have this problem, just ones that use the rear calipers as the handbrake, like VAGs. You go for a drive, the brakes heat up, you stop, put the handbrake on, discs cool and shrink and it can slip. Some cars (like Subarus) have a small drum brake alongside the rear disc brakes just for the handbrake, so they don't suffer from this problem.

I always leave it in first if not on perfectly flat ground. Didn't think it cared whether it was first or reverse as they both do exactly the same thing.

+1

Disc brakes don't make great hand brakes.

My last car (Chrysler) had disc brakes all round, but the rear disc was shaped a bit like an old style hat, like this:

The inner part of the disc was actually a drum for the hand brake. There was a little pair of brake shoes on the hub that worked as a hand brake.

Ingenious design, but a bugger if you wanted to work on the rear brake shoes.

Edited 12 February, 201313 yr by booke23

I almost lost my lotus in the Alps - hot brakes cooling off meant the handbrake wasn't gripping enough... Luckily wheels were not straight so it just turned slowly up a bank as it rolled. Gave me a the shock of my life as you can imagine!

At the time we were several thousand feet up the mountains so if it had gone over the edge of the car park it would have been off down the mountain...! Yikes!

I now never rely on the handbrake alone when I'm on a slope- in gear and wheels pointing to the kerb.

Yep, I've always left cars in gear since I passed my test. Think I picked it up as an in-built habit from my Dad.

Still not always a guarantee if you're on ice though!

I was in San Francisco for a while some years back.

The rule there was "Kerb Your Wheels".

Done that ever since.

I had a similar thing happen to me at work a couple of weeks back with my previous car (seat leon mk2 fr), the works carpark has a slight slope on it, I parked the car in the usual space that I use six days a week facing up the slope and when i finished work and returned to the car it had slid down the slope to the other side of the car park about 50 feet. Luckly it was a saturday morning and the carpark was half empty and nothing was parked opposite me. A lucky escape I think I now leave the car in gear.

Both my neighbour's Vauxhalls (Meriva and Zafira) have had "runaways" due to handbrake failure, and both times hit the same concrete wall at the bottom of their drive. A visitor in the road left his VW Fox on a slope, and the handbrake failed, and the car rolled back and smashed the bumper and headlights on my dear old Mondeo - still, a brand new front end brightened the old girl up.

Of all the cars I have owned, I have to say the handbrake - well, the brakes in general, on the Octavia is probably the best I have had.

Yep, Vauxhalls have this problem too. A guy at work had it good, his rolled off in a carpark and wedged itself between a Ford and a BMW.

Instinctively leave all cars I own in gear when stopped. Never trust a handbrake over a nice big engaged cog.

Agreed – Always puzzled/horrified by the number of people who don’t leave cars in gear when parked, not only that but they will argue it is unnecessary. If they had ever worked on a handbrake they would probably have a better appreciation of why not to put too much trust in it. Even if you think your handbrake is tip top, in almost all FWD cars you will only have braking on the lightly loaded rear wheels (hence the sliding) by putting car in gear you also have braking on the front wheels where most of the weight is.

So any of you out there who don’t believe in parking in gear – a small plea. Please put a sticker to that effect in your windscreen so that I can park uphill of you.

As with so many things Saab got it right with the reverse gear lock. If you have your car keys in your hand then it is in reverse, impossible to forget to leave car in reverse. The only problem was that because the rest of the world did not adopt the idea a lot of folk did not understand how it worked and would try haul the gear lever out of reverse without using the key to dissengage the lock. Particularly horrible to watch if you had checked, reminded and been assured that they knew all about how the reverse lock worked.

Liked the Saab system. Just didn't like having the actual lock down there - really annoying when you had other keys with your car key!

i always leave my car in 1st or second if it is on any kind of slope, in the drive though i just leave the had brake on, but in my last mk1 2008/57 octy i had major surgery and couldn't drive for 6 weeks. after the 6 weeks was up i got in the car and couldn't get it to move the realized the offside rear caliper had jammed on so tried to move the car backwards and forwards to free it and nothing, so got a hammer and managed to get onto the floor still in some pain and hit the caliper and it eventually freed up. and after that the caliper was shot and never worked right and the handbrake was useless and would not hold the car on any surface, and it just past it's taxi test and no more on the brake machine, but sold the car last month and love the feeling now of having a proper working handbrake again in the superb

The town where I live has a sloping high street, (probably the widest high street in the country) about once a month a car will wind its merry way across the street and either hit another car or go through a shop window...if you live here you know not to park on the lower side of the street.

Lucky escape.

I had this problem nearly everyday for 3 years I owned my 04 plate BMW 320d. The handbrake was a drum in brake design and it was absolutely shocking, it was an old design that BMW had been using since the old E30 (87 - 91) model. Luckilly I am a dab hand with the tools so every month without fail the car was jacked up and the handbrake was adjusted. Even after having new cables, shoes, springs actuator etc it still wasnt great. They still use it now in the new F30 and all other BMWs. Why... its cheap and easy to maintain. But it compromises safety in my opinion.

Never trust a hand brake, always click into 1st or reverse depending on which way your facing on a hill

Gotta admit on the flat and level, I generally rely on the handbrake.....maybe I'm lucky, but in all my years and cars I've never had one fail!

On hills, the car goes into first and the wheels point into the kerb facing down or away from the kerb if facing up the slope........even in Glasgow, I try not to find spaces on hills to park......'cos it means I've either gotta walk up or down the hill to get to the car........

Well saved by the OP though!!! When I was kid, my mates dad was a shopfitter/general builder who had this old van he used for matrials and tools. Well one day he came home exhausted from his work, parked on their very steep driveway......and just coudln't catch the van as it headed down the drive, across the road, and into his 'neighbour across the street's ' living room after he pilled on the handbrake and got out!

Let's just say he had some FOC repairs to do to that neighbours house....... After that, he got his handrbake seen to, used first gear, and make wooden 'chalks' that he jammed under the wheels religiously when he got home!

Liked the Saab system. Just didn't like having the actual lock down there - really annoying when you had other keys with your car key!

Yes, if you had a bunch of keys they were laying on/scratching the plastic around the lock ... but on the other hand there was no risk of your keys causing injury in an accident. With the priority now given to safety it surprises me how close to my kneecap the ignition key is. Hopefully the big lump of plastic and electronics would just break off if your knee hit it with any force – still does not seem a great position from a safety viewpoint. I suppose though that the mechanical ignition key will soon be a thing of the past.

Being 'of a certain age' my dear old Dad grew up in the 1930's/40's, when HIS Dad ran a number of commercial vehicles so he was schooled from a very early age in the finer points of handling what for that time were heavy goods vehicles. Always taught to use gears for slowing down and for holding when parked on slopes. Never rely on a handbrake. The brakes were usually too small, poorly designed and made from even poorer materials anyway, the cables often broke and the mechanisms used to regularly freeze solid in those days.

I guess he taught me the same caution and in the 70's when I took my test the same was reiterated in the driving lessons leading up to it.

My lads now follow the same 'traditional' family logic. Despite that I suspect that these days new drivers may not be taught so much to use engine braking, and probably the same for in gear parking.

Progress..........

As above though, a cracking save by the OP, I can imagine the relief! There'll be many of us that could recount a few more of those 'what if' moments I'm sure.

Always taught to use gears for slowing down and for holding when parked on slopes.

Despite that I suspect that these days new drivers may not be taught so much to use engine braking, and probably the same for in gear parking.

I think this is correct, I passed my test nearly 20 years ago & was never taught to down gear when slowing down.

Also not told to leave the car in gear when parked.

Don't know if it was just my instructor or not, but my wife passed in 2007 & she was taught the same way (by a different instructor).

However I have now devleoped the habbit of leaving in gear whenever parked.