Mine actually includes the tool to release the electric parking brake 
Granted, it should have a mechanical one and not need the release tool, but I digress 
Early X5s came with a tool to manually release the transmission from park. It was necessary because the gearbox was made from chocolate, although it looked like it had been ordered from a dodgy website and delivered in a brown paper wrapper. Germans aren't always efficient, as later cars still had the tool, but the mechanism had been deleted from the gearbox.
Mercedes managed a different sort of oppswittery when they went to electric selectors on the steering column with (I think) the E-class which would only shift out of park with the engine turning. So a non-start for whatever reason meant an immobile car. Much communication with MB's technical department led to their bemusement that we thought that a lack of a manual release was poor engineering. The 2nd generation of A-class allowed you to put the trans in neutral, but only for a few seconds before shifting back into park. That's annoying, until your moronic colleague left the winch remote on the back of the truck last night.
Land Rover's first electric handbrakes were notorious for stripping the plastic gears in the gearbox between the motor and the cables - a design Renault admired so much they further under-developed it for the Megane, but that's a different rant. It's a one-way failure, in that the motor is still able to tension the cables but not release them. Which means by the time it's been operated a few times, the cables are bow-string tight, but the manual release looks like something Colin Chapman would have considered too flimsy. And I never did find out why the Discovery buries it inside the centre console(it's right at the bottom, which is a looong way down) but the RR Sport has it under the backseat.
VW decided to put their handbrake motors inside the caliper. Anyone who has ever taken a wheel off a car will appreciate why this a laughably bad idea. And because it's internal there's
no possibility of releasing it without dismantling the caliper. On the car. With it locked on. At least most of them were FWD, so slipping an old wheel trim under each back wheel meant you could move the car under its own power. If it was an Audi you made damn sure that you rescued your wheel trims after doing a
stealth deliverytm, as their service attitude is taken directly from the Ryanair employee manual.
Anyone who tells you that electric handbrakes are simpler than manual ones is too stupid to find their way out of a £20 gazebo with no sides.
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Topic: Haltrac Hoist (Read 2492 times)