Some folks call it a parking brake. Other people call it an emergency brake, They’re both right.
Many people no longer use their parking brake. Everyone hopes they won’t need to use their emergency brake. In either case, when needed, it needs to work. Unfortunately, many of the aftermarket emergency brake cables are not up to the task.
Indications are that auto manufacturers use quality brake cables for their parking/emergency brakes. This means that, when you buy a brand-new car, you can count on the parking brake when you park and the emergency brake when you have an emergency. But, parking/emergency brake cables don’t last forever.
Parking/emergency mechanically operate the brakes on your vehicle. There is a lever between the seats, or a pedal under the dash, that you use to activate the parking/emergency brake. That lever, or pedal, pulls on a brake cable that draws the brake pads against the brake rotor, or the brake shoes out into the brake drum.
While manufacturers use quality brake cables for their parking/emergency brakes, the aftermarket versions you purchase at auto parts stores are frequently defective. To put it frankly, they often stretch or brake. This isn’t good when you’re parking and it’s, potentially, catastrophic in an emergency.
The aftermarket brake cables you purchase at auto parts stores are almost exclusively imported. Tests have shown that between 50 and 90 percent of them fail tension tests. Sometimes they fail because inferior quality material stretches under pressure. Other times they fail catastrophically by exploding out of the testing equipment.
Since the practical life expectancy of a parking/emergency brake cable is about 50,000 miles (even less in Northern climates where drivers are dealing with the combined effects of snow, ice, rain, road dirt and road salt), after two or three years, most cars need new parking/emergency brake cables. What’s the point, however, if car owners can’t count on the brake cables sold at auto parts stores?
There is a solution. The alternative is to purchase your car’s parking/emergency brake cable on ebay where Bruin Brake Cables sells its American made parking/emergency brake cables. Bruin’s brake cables pass the same tension tests approximately 99 percent of the time.
Why the dramatic difference in quality? It’s a difference in the quality of materials used to manufacture the parking/emergency brake cables and a commitment to quality workmanship. There are steps the foreign manufacturers skip in the interest of improving their bottom line. Bruin Brake Cables doesn’t take any shortcuts in the manufacture of its brake cables.
You would expect to pay more for the quality brake cables, wouldn’t you? But you won’t. Bruin’s brake cables are competitively priced with the cables sold by its foreign competitors. And, since Bruin is committed to shipping your brake cables by the next business day, you can expect to receive your parking/emergency brake cables when you need them (parts stores don’t carry parking/emergency brakes for all models – they have to order most of them from parts warehouses).