It seems my parking brake is not working. I left my car on Neutral, pressed brake pedal and latched the parking brake. When I did that, the car was rolling. Could this be costly to fix?
Should be an inexpensive repair. The parking brake is not closing on the brake properly. Should be a simple adjustment by tightening the cable or replacing pads.
There is no difference between parking and hand brakes. To put it simply: When you step on the brake pedal in your car, you are utilizing the line pressure from a hydraulic system to amplify the pressure, which helps distribute equal force to all of the brakes on your car. However, for handbrakes - generally it's a stainless steel line that leads to the front brakes. This brake is in effect something that stops you car from unnecessary movement when in a parked position. This brake does not have the same amount of force, or effectiveness, as your brake pedal.
No, most cars have two different types of braking systems - one for the handbrake and the other for the pedal brake. As long as the brake pads are not too worn, the parking brake problem can easily be fixed by tightening up the linkage. But from your description, it seems as though BOTH the brake systems are faulty - since you mentioned that you pressed the brake pedal as well as latching the handbrake without effect. Replacing the brake pads is fairly cheap, tightening the handbrake linkage shouldn't cost anything, air bubbles in your brake fluid could be fixed cheaply too. The only expensive thing would be if you have worn discs that need to be replaced. Hope it helps.
