Tonight my neighbour came banging on my door to tell me my car was in the middle of the road. I had parked on my drive 25mins earlier, ran to the car unlocked it and could see the handbrake was down. My neighbour and son said wtf ya idiot you never put your handbrake on. Made me doubt myself despite living with the sloping drive for 15yrs. Checked my cctv and clearly see me pull up on the handbrake and leave car in gear. Then 20mins later the brake comes off and car rolls down drive into the road it stopped as it was in gear and the alarm went off. I have pulled and pushed and hit the handbrake lever with it on and it's not come off so now have a brick under the wheel.

 

I had this happen once with my previous manual 1.4TSI Elegance, the handbrake came off in the Aldi car park at Bideford and it slowly rolled forward a few inches and gently rested on the rear bumper of the car parked in front with no damage to either car.

Yeah seen the other posts also remember the maroon red coloured vrs rolling down a hill and off a sea wall. But no clues on whats happening. On my cctv i can clearly see it on then click off itself. My cars a 64plate vrs had it from year old now upto 72k and its never done it before notice all the other posts are mainly 2014 cars.

16 minutes ago, Mike97 said:

My cars a 64plate vrs had it from year old now upto 72k and its never done it before notice all the other posts are mainly 2014 cars.

Mine was an April 2015 build on a 15 plate.

What gear had you engaged before leaving the car?

 

How steep was the slope?

 

Petrol or diesel engine? - sorry, dont know what powers a late VRS

 

Do you hold the release button down when pulling up the handbrake or pull it up with the pawl clicking over the ratchet? - The latter can  result in the handbrake releasing.

Edited 18 December, 20241 yr by J.R.

I always used to leave a manual car in gear.

If the handbrake operates on the rear discs it has to be pulled up tight I believe as when the hot disc cools and shrinks the brake is inoperative. I

24 minutes ago, gkr47 said:

If the handbrake operates on the rear discs it has to be pulled up tight I believe as when the hot disc cools and shrinks the brake is inoperative.

This has been the explanation given when both dealers and Skoda UK have been asked about this issue.

10 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

This has been the explanation given when both dealers and Skoda UK have been asked about this issue.

Had that happen on my old golf before the octavia as 1 of the rear calipers was sticking and overheating. But this the actual lever just disengaged itself you can see it pop down😢

Just been looking at the cctv and my system has sound detection you can hear a very loud bang as the handbrake releases.

1 minute ago, Mike97 said:

Just been looking at the cctv and my system has sound detection you can hear a very loud bang as the handbrake releases.

 

1 hour ago, J.R. said:

Do you hold the release button down when pulling up the handbrake or pull it up with the pawl clicking over the ratchet? - The latter can  result in the handbrake releasing.

 

Thats exactly what can happen, how do you apply the handbrake?

 

I had a Shogun that would do it if you leaned on the handbrake when it was applied, not all the time, it was only after my girlfriend had driven it, she applied the handbrake in the latter manner. You could get it to fail fairly repeatedly on test using the latter technique. That was a worn pawl which the latter creates but even a new fully functional handbrake can be set with the pawl barely engaged, granted you have to try hard to do it and why would anyone? But it can and will happen occasionally by chance.

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

 

Thats exactly what can happen, how do you apply the handbrake?

 

I had a Shogun that would do it if you leaned on the handbrake when it was applied, not all the time, it was only after my girlfriend had driven it, she applied the handbrake in the latter manner. You could get it to fail fairly repeatedly on test using the latter technique. That was a worn pawl which the latter creates but even a new fully functional handbrake can be set with the pawl barely engaged, granted you have to try hard to do it and why would anyone? But it can and will happen occasionally by chance.

Usually pull it up with button pressed and leave in 1st gear,drives not very steep maybe 20,30 degrees. Never had a problem with it untill now car was on 10k miles when i got it yr old now on 73k Its a late 2014 registered Jan 2015. Noticed most of the other posts are similar build year but they had the problem way earlier than me. When its on no amount of wiggling it or messing with the button disengages it. Just got as far as adjusting it up a few clicks.

8 minutes ago, Mike97 said:

Usually pull it up with button pressed and leave in 1st gear,drives not very steep maybe 20,30 degrees. Never had a problem with it untill now car was on 10k miles when i got it yr old now on 73k Its a late 2014 registered Jan 2015. Noticed most of the other posts are similar build year but they had the problem way earlier than me. When its on no amount of wiggling it or messing with the button disengages it. Just got as far as adjusting it up a few clicks.

I believe that keeping the release button depressed while pulling the lever up has been found to be the cause of inadvertent hand brake releases in the past - the correct method is to pull the lever up without touching the release button.

4 hours ago, J.R. said:

Do you hold the release button down when pulling up the handbrake or pull it up with the pawl clicking over the ratchet? - The latter can  result in the handbrake releasing.

 

14 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

I believe that keeping the release button depressed while pulling the lever up has been found to be the cause of inadvertent hand brake releases in the past - the correct method is to pull the lever up without touching the release button.

Two completely opposite opinions!!!

I can recall inadvertent hand brake release being an issue quite some time ago - it was found that keeping the release button depressed while pulling up the lever was preventing the pawl from engaging fully at the bottom of the ratchet teeth.  

Indeed, maybe I should clarify mine, where it came from and what exactly I do because I had to look and analyse the automatic reflex today!

 

Its very old school advice to stop the pawl and ratchet wearing prematurely/unecessarily from when materials were not wasted in vehicle manufacture, its also a gesture that a professional chauffeur would do to prevent the clicking noise to create a better experience for the passengers in a similar vein to rolling off the brake pedal just before the vehicle comes to a complete stop.

 

Having now observed, what I do is to depress the button, lift the lever till I feel the required tension, release the button then lift the lever slightly to allow the pawl to engage properly if it were on the edge of the ratchet tooth then release with a little downward pressure making sure its properly engaged.

 

It was the Shogun which clearly had a problematic mechanism which showed me the benefit of adopting that procedure, doing that you could stand on the lever and it wouldnt release, not doing it and one time in 10 or 20 you could lean on it and it would release. There seems to be a similar but worse problem on these Octavia handbrakes.

2 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

I can recall inadvertent hand brake release being an issue quite some time ago - it was found that keeping the release button depressed while pulling up the lever was preventing the pawl from engaging fully at the bottom of the ratchet teeth.  

 

I can see how that would happen hence my asking the OP how they engaged the handbrake, his reply confirms your view.

yeah see no one knows do you pull it up letting it click or press the button🤣I have always just yanked it up on all cars but read the handbrake problem few years ago and most said press the button or it wears it away. So guess what I started doing that😂

For the number of times the hand brake is operated in a vehicles life, any wear on the pawl and ratchet will be negligible.

Far more risk of the pawl not seating properly if button is depressed while applying brake.

Pressing the button or not shouldn't make any difference, if it doesn't engage on a pawl it drops to the next. This is the whole principle behind the ratchet mechanism.

 

In this case it appears to have skipped over all of them so I would be having a very close look at the handbrake mechanism before I trusted it again.

 

It should absolutely work like that in theory, what happens is that the pawl sits on the very edge of the ratchet tooth, it slips but the tension on the handbrake is such that it returns so quickly that the pawl skips over the remaining ratchet teeth.

 

Its a combination of wear, stickiness, how the user operates the handbrake, imperfect design and some bad luck thrown in for good measure, I have only experienced it with the one vehicle and that is one too many and the reason I now automatically operate the handbrake in a specific manner.

In the nearly 50 years I've been driving I have always engaged the handbrake by pressing the release button, and only once on one vehicle had the handbrake release by itself - my previous Octavia.

I am going to take it out and have a look at it as I don't trust it now have made a block of wood to sit under the lever just encase. Don't know if anything is serviceable as diagrams look like a whole unit.