There are pros and cons to electronically actuated parking brakes, though if I had to choose, I’d always rather have a good, old-fashioned manual parking brake instead. Sure, an electronic parking brake saves interior space, but for me, the tradeoffs are too great.
Electronic parking brakes add weight and complexity, plus, even if it is just a button on the dash, it always seems to take longer to activate or deactivate than quickly pulling on a manual handle. Further, on some designs, you lose the ability to use the e-brake in emergencies.
That added complexity means more things can go wrong. And that’s exactly the case with this recent Chevrolet recall, which says that a small number of cars could have damaged parking brake wiring harnesses that could cause the brake to fail or result in “unintended actuation,” even while the car is moving.
Let’s Get A Little More Specific
The recall, launched on Thursday, applies to just 20 Blazer EVs built in 2024 and 2025. It’s actually a fix for another recall that happened in June 2025, where over 40,000 of the cars were recalled due to the same problem. It turns out a very small number of those cars didn’t get the right fix. From the recall document:
Some vehicles remedied under recall 25V433 required wire harness replacement. An error in GM’s electronic parts catalogue (EPC) allowed dealers to order an incorrect replacement part. The design routing of the incorrect replacement wire harness does not sufficiently inhibit flexing of the wires and may cause shorting or breaking of the parking brake wires under normal driving conditions.
When these wires short or break, a light may appear on the dashboard, and in some cases, the car may not be able to shift out of park. That’s not all, though, according to GM:
If the parking brake actuates while driving, there is increased risk of a crash. If parking brake function is lost, the vehicle may roll away while unattended, increasing the risk of a crash.
In case you’ve never ripped the handbrake while driving at highway speeds, let me enlighten you: It makes for a very dangerous situation. Locking up the rear wheels while moving means that, effectively, you lose all control of the rear end of your car, which can result in a high-speed loss of control and, unless you’re very lucky, a crash.
How Did GM Find Out About The Mistake?
Issuing a recall to cover for a previous recall is nothing new. The most recent instance I can think of is back in October, when Jeep issued a recall for its Wrangler hybrid batteries to fix a previous recall that turned out to be potentially ineffective. Unlike some of these recall-on-recall fixes, this one wasn’t triggered by persisting issues or customer complaints. It was actually a GM employee who discovered the mistake:
On October 13, 2025, a GM brand quality manager submitted a report to GM’s Speak Up For Safety (SUFS) system after discovering that GM’s electronic parts catalogue (EPC) allowed dealers to order an incorrect wire harness for repairs under recall 25V433. Some vehicles remedied under recall 25V433 required wire harness replacement. The 25V433 service bulletin directed dealers to use the EPC to identify harness replacement part numbers. GM opened a product investigation on October 31, 2025. GM’s investigation reviewed warranty service data to identify vehicles that may have received an incorrect replacement harness. On January 15, 2026, GM’s Safety and Field Decision Authority decided to conduct a safety recall.
GM says it corrected the original recall service bulletin the next day to make sure it wouldn’t happen again, and says it hasn’t heard of any crashes, injuries, or other incidents regarding the issue.
While dealers have already been notified, owners won’t be notified about the fix—a new harness for the parking brake—until March. That being said, even if you own a Blazer EV, it’s extremely unlikely you got the wrong fix in the first place, seeing as how this new recall only affects 0.04% of the cars that got the original recall. But I recommend running your VIN through the NHTSA’s recall site, just to be sure.
Top graphic image: Chevrolet
“Why don’t you just make the EPB automatic when you shift into Park?”
“These parking brakes go to 11.”
Now that I have my first RWD car, I’m sort of wishing the parking brake locked the front wheels instead (mainly for jacking/safety). On an EV, I’m semi-surprised the parking brake is actually on the caliper instead of just programmed into the drivetrain.
I know there’s tradition, and plenty of situations where you need to lock the wheels and not the entire axle, but it’s still interesting that clean-sheet EVs often have so much old tradition built into them.
A. I dislike electric parking brakes mainly because I do not use the PB for parking on flat land (99,99% of time) as to not have shoe/drum or pad/disk rust together.
B. “ripped the handbrake while driving … Locking up”
No? (I am in the EU.) My from the 80ties car did, but cars from ~2000 does not. Yes, they pass 12-24 month inspections measuring all brakes.
C. AFAIK the PB/Handbrake is not (no longer) considered an emergency brake, with the dual diagonal main system.
From past experiences, old mechanical e-brakes were one of the most neglected items on a used vehicle, up to finding vehicles on the road with them damaged or even missing components and not working at all.
Having an electronically actuated one doesn’t sound bad providing it is maintained.
Matt’s Off Road Recovery are not fans of electronically controlled parking brakes, transfer cases, transmissions. My current car is first one with electronic parking brakes, I listen to the little motor doing its thing and wonder how much it will cost when it stops doing its thing.
For my F150, it was on the rear calipers, and RockAuto says $150-230(CAD) per actuator.
Which, having replaced many park brake cables and parking brake shoe assemblies, I’m willing to pay for the simplicity of it.
What are these designs where you can’t use the emergency brake in an emergency? Genuinely curious. I tested it on both my cars by holding the switch up while driving and they came to a stop in a hurry, but in a controlled manner.
Plus, having an electronic parking brake means it can automatically set when you turn the car off and prevent rollaways by automatically engaging if you do a dumb and open the door with the car in drive. Combined with modern stability control it can also prevent the situation you described where yanking the e-brake at speed can be dangerous. I think the weight of a small electric motor on the caliper is negligible compared to a steel handle, cable and mechanism also on a caliper/drum. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if an electronic parking brake worked out to be lighter than an old school cable and handle/pedal setup.
I know we generally hate anything different than it was 20 years ago and progress of any type, but they’re all-around safer than the old school manual brakes. And before you get your pitchforks out about how electronics can fail, remember how temperamental cable brakes could be. They required manual adjusting, the cables would stretch or break, the actual brake mechanism’s monkey motion of springs and levers could get stiff, and the handles had their own set of problems with ratchet mechanisms that got crusty, worn out and gummed up with fast food crumbs. The only place EPB’s fall short is FWD econobox Tokyo Drift hooning.
So the single most important thing.
I mean, I love drifting in winter and I’ve never had a FWD. And I love being able to initiate a slide while scrubbing speed with the E-brake.
The ‘ol scandy flick isn’t helpful when you’re carrying too much speed in to a corner in snow.
I had a Dodge Stratus whose ratchet plate wore down around 80k. Made me jump when I set it, stepped out of car and it released with a mighty metal ca chung sound. Until I had it fixed I used a couple pieces of kindling as wheel chocks, in case the manual trannie popped out of gear. If good enough for B-52, then good enough for a Stratus.
“In case you’ve never ripped the handbrake while driving at highway speeds, let me enlighten you: It makes for a very dangerous situation. Locking up the rear wheels while moving means that, effectively, you lose all control of the rear end of your car, which can result in a high-speed loss of control and, unless you’re very lucky, a crash.”
Tell that to the teenager who just watched the original Top Gun for the umpteenth billionty time and is looking to show off.
I have my first EPB right now and I stand by my dislike for them. I also never loved foot-operated parking brakes, but I can at least acknowledge that those started in older cars and trucks where they regularly had to work around a bench seat.
Main issue for me? It’s too binary. On/off. Regular brakes don’t work that way and neither should parking brakes. Sure, the EPBs usually have logic that don’t apply full pressure while driving, but that’s a level of trust I just don’t have. And this story doesn’t help 😉
I like the idea of having one that automatically engages when you park for steep driveways or hills, but being that I don’t park on either regularly it’s not something I want instead of a manual handbrake. Seems like something that could easily be triggered by a sensor for vehicle angle (doesn’t need to be perfect plus/minus 5 degrees) or just have it as an optional setting if you have a steep driveway. I can also appreciate that they take very little space and on my equinox it’s very conveniently located next to the shifter. But it’s adding complexity I don’t need, stopping me from doing cool drifts, and making rear brake jobs much more difficult on some cars.
This is all of course with an automatic – manual cars with electronic parking brakes are the devil’s work.
They don’t bother me to an immense extent, but I don’t like them. It’s a minor point, but in deep snow driving in a FWD, being able to pull the e-brake to get the rear end out can help stop you from understeering into a curb.