brakes locked on - car wont move - hill holder broken
 

Ok this happened to me recently and I wanted to write it on here so others know what the issue is.

My girlfriend calls me saying car is stuck near a junction and wont move,(note the junction is on a very slight incline) "its like the brakes have locked on" she says. I turn up and realise she is correct, the brakes are indeed locked on, rock hard - so much so that it means that we cannot really move car at all as clutch was stinking and i didnt want to hurt it any more, so after allowing clutch to cool a bit, we get her to move back off the junction, to allow traffic to pass. as i thought it might be brakes just binding we did the rocking in reverse and forward and it allowed us to just move the car a bit, to detriment of the clutch.

Anyway after traffic dies down i go back thinking its just the rear drivers side brake seized (as i felt it for heat when we moved it and it was a wee bit warmer than the others), but i cannot get the piston to retract no matter what!! and even worse, when i pressed the brake the piston came out further but wouldnt go back in! at this point i realise i wont be able to fix car there and then so leave it.

After a bit of reading online i came accross references to broken hill holders and turns out this is what was wrong. Basically you have to locate the hill holder mechanism (its on pass side, just below fuel filter) and ys indeed the big spring on it had snapped which meant it was locked on and couldnt release. all i had to do was turn the arm a bit and the car brakes released! couldn't believe it!

anyway, not wanting to risk it coming on, on the way home i decided to disconnect the hill holder for good, on the spot. you will see a cable with 1 x nipple and 1 x locknut on the end which connets it to the hill holder. the nipple is 6mm, 7mm or 8mm (sorry cant remember what size spanner) but the locknut is 14mm spanner for sure. you need to undo both of these and then pull the cable from the hill holder. i then cable tied the hill holder arm so it was parallel to the hill holder and thus locked into place. the cable is just hanging loose, unconnected, next to it.

sorry, please feel free to move this to brakes section...

Funny enough as soon as i read the first few lines i thought hill assist, is yours a wagon?

My old hawk R sport had one, could never get use to it so i backed the cable right off. Right pain in the ass when your shunting about in car parks

its a 2002 bugeye sport, when we bought it and discovered the hill assist, i just knew it would mean trouble somewhere along the line!

but in fairness, the spring snapped from age, no big deal - i could drill hole and fit new spring but I cant be bothered, one less thing to worry about!