Renault Megane Scenic Parking Brake fault. Cold weather. Battery weak.

Interesting Renault Megane Scenic behaviour this weekend. Drove down the road and while moving car beeeped and flashed up Parking Brake problem and ((Stop!)) warning. So pulled over and stopped and . . pulled the parking brake. Which duly went on (it's automagical and you can hear motor put it on - sounds like central locking only for wheels.)

The manual confirmed one should pull over and stop. Anyway we got bored quickly with that! So we went to carry on. But upon attempting to move off Parking brake would not release!

Now we could see at least there was a problem.

Found the emergency parking release lever in boot. It took one wussy pull and one strong pull accompanied with clunk and slight rolling of car forward to release it.

Drove to Lidl Stillorgan. No parking brake. So hills interesting. No excitement though. Parked in gear and wheels to kerb. At shops and at home. Parking brake remained in error and refused to do anything. Red light on brake flashing.

The internet has various causes detailed. From EPB unit replace or motor replace 600 or 400 euros to . . Cable seized. Or fuse. Or low battery. Found fuse well hidden under passenger seat (Take out the drawer under the passenger seat. The white 25A fuse is the parking brake one.). Taking that out, examining and replacing has changed behaviour from parking brake not doing anything to it trying to go on but failing. Can hear motor weakly. So wethinks cold weather and battery.

Occam's razor. It's always most likely to be a simple problem!

The fuses under drawer under passenger seat.

Thanks to the internet for advice!

But FIRST check it is not just low battery.

We need to fix up the internet a bit.

http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=128919

http://www.renaultforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=149069&page=2#/enter

http://www.renaultforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=149541#/forumsite/20488/topics/149541?page=1

http://www.magicmum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=442304&start=24

http://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/22754/where-and-what-are-the-fuses-in-renault-megane-grande-scenic

Time passed . . .

James drove around happily without handbrake, Fionnuala was a bit more reluctant. Santa Claus came. 

Three months later ...

Feb 2016

THE description of the handbrake system and problems they have is worth a read and repair by  http://www.parkingbrakerepair was good for us.

We got these guys in wales to fix it and local garage took off and re-installed the parking brake unit for us. http://www.parkingbrakerepair.com/renault-parking-brakes/

Costs: 

The local garage did job for ? 50? Or maybe 20 euros. Read the notes on what mechanic should do when removing and re-installing!

Shipping to/from wales: ? Don't have cost

Cost of repair: 150 sterling(get a quote from parkingbrakerepair.com)

Renault parking brake . . . . Official repair would cost:

Chapelizod 107euros per hour Diagnostic test first.

Maybe full unit would not have to be replaced but if it was then 500 or 600 for new unit. (+service labour)

I have also sent 3 more queries to 2nd hand parts places.

It's a pretty well known failure.

 very interesting: https://parkingbrakerepair.com/repairing-renault-grand-scenic-electronic-parking-brake

 e.g. mail order fix 150 pound sterling. https://parkingbrakerepair.com/renault-grand-scenic.html

Will see if anything comes back from them before going to Renault Chapelizod.

J.

. . . The part was not available

http://www.renaultforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=134347

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_jsoff=1&_nkw=scenic+electronic+handbrake+controller&_sop=15

http://www.renaultforums.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-111434.html

http://www.euretechblog.com/2015/10/renault-scenic-ii-parking-brake-failure.html

http://www.bba-reman.com/content.aspx?content=Renault_Megane_Laguna_Electronic_Parking_Brake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofjtk531yjM

. . . . Many years passed (two years) . .  .

March 2019

Fionnuala's brother's car stuck in middle of junction with broken parking brake. The pull cable to release brake in their car didn't have a plastic toggle on the end though!

The parkingbrakerepair.com guys now have facebook: https://m.facebook.com/bluechipautotronics/?_rdc=1&_rdr

Traffic light enforcing technology to be rolled out at key junctions.

The council are to roll out a traffic light enforcing shield technology after a successful trial. Local city traffic management together with researchers and road technology company AntiForce have said that the device has increased traffic light compliance at selected junctions to almost 100%.

City engineer Seán Dough says they are very pleased with the exceptional results. "There has been worsening driver behaviour over the last few years. We have been seeing all sorts of shenanigans [which were] especially bad this year." "It started with vehicles racing through orange lights. We saw a trend [of drivers] going later and even later through the orange and red lights. Traffic on green were frequently driving in through vehicles that continued to drive through the red lights. Pedestrians didn't get a look in when we observed the junctions! In fact, we were seeing that [the] pedestrians only chance to cross was to go when traffic snarled up completely."

Mr Dough of the council has told us that they had tried a huge variety of methods in effort to influence road user behaviour. "We worked on signage." "Junction layouts were redesigned and realigned with leading transport industry best practice. All sorts of timing schemes were attempted." "Local education campaigns were run." "We have bent over backwards on an ongoing basis for a few years running now." In the last two years there were some accidents and tragically there were two of incidents of death involving vulnerable road users. A local campaign protesting about road deaths was running but a general consensus is that it did not seem to have an effect. Gardaí were also tasked with enforcement of traffic rules at problematic junctions. We are informed that operation Free Moving was successful while Gardaí were on the scene however Gardaí found it difficult to keep up with the amount of traffic rule violations while present and behaviour reverted and when Gardaí were absent. "We worked very hard to try and find a simple solution but nothing made a tap of difference".

The council took a new direction and started working with professor Maire Ní Chreidte and an International team about eight months ago. Initially monitoring of the junctions and the lights was done. Ms Ní Chreidte told us "We observed very agressive behaviour by vehicles. We are passionate about road safety in this team. We did not wish to spend years collecting data and publish a report at the end. We really wanted to solve this problem." A mix of academic and military or police technologies were examined and the team connected with the company AntiForce. "The timing was just right for us. The device had just been trialled and rolled out in a city state national basis by AntiForce.

How does the device work? Sting shield technology deploys on the same timing as the traffic lights. The marking stop line at each side of junction contains the device embedded along the full width of the line. Upon the green to orange light transition the shield deploys upwards. When fully extended a tyre moving over the sheild will be penetrated by sting needles and the tyre is held in place on the line. Upon the red to green light transition the sheild retracts and traffic can move freely over the line. AntiForce say cyclists can move through the stop line for cars into the cycle forward stop area by steering carefully between or hopping over the needles. A higher density needle mesh on the cycle stop line then enforces cycle compliance. The company say pedestrian sting barriers are among  future developments. Mr Dough said "We were looking for a comprehensive and effective solution and we are well pleased to have found one."

Traffic light enforcing technology unobtrusively embedded in the stop line.
A vehicle is held on orange or red.

Public opinions of road users to the new device seems to be mixed. Some drivers queried expressed the opinion that the junction would work better as a free for all without lights or controls. "No need for it, complete overkill! Just slowing things down and wasting time and money." said one van driver. The consensus among some pedestrian users of the junctions was that it was much better but that care was still required when traversing the road. "The cars are wise to it now. The locals anyway. And the ones from further are inclined to be more hesitant though almost all driving over the line o course. It's a bit of craic now watching the bemusement [when the] car stops sudden like. Some good ones if tearing through. I haven't seen any rear endings myself, I suppose the drivers are used to the odd swerve or sudden stop.

We queried AntiForce about the safety aspects of the device and we were informed that the needles were resin coated so that tyre penetration would almost never in and of itself be the sole cause of a tyre puncture. We were also assured that the measured increase in safety for junction users was significantly larger and cancelled the smaller increase in risk with vehicles coming to an enforced stop on red which may be of an unexpected nature.

It now looks like the trial here is set to be the basis of a roll out of the technology across a wider area. Be alert and watch for these devices at the stop lines!

Please remember our road space is a shared space, drive and use it defensively and with care and consideration for other users.

#TrafficLightEnforcing #StingShield technology @WaterfordWhispers