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Good technical reasons for leaving the brake off.

However, your insurance company might dictate otherwise.  On the storage site I use, all handbrakes must be on all the time.  I have seen no ill effects.

Certainly in your case, I think you might have an insurance problem if anything happened.  I would leave it on.

Jim

Quote: Originally posted by Greendemon315 on 04/10/2010

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Good technical reasons for leaving the brake off.

However, your insurance company might dictate otherwise.  On the storage site I use, all handbrakes must be on all the time.  I have seen no ill effects.

Certainly in your case, I think you might have an insurance problem if anything happened.  I would leave it on.

Jim

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Usual advice is handbrake off if a van is left for a long time for the very reasons given above. Then there are the requirments of your insurers to consider which may mean handbrake on. Helpful so far? If the van is sloping backwards down the incline then the handbrake will not work if the van starts to fall backwards. Van brakes are designed to come off in those circumstances. So handbrake may as well be off.

Phil

I have seen my brakes stick on after only using the handbrake for a fortnight on a sloping site. Mind you we do get horizontal rain in Wales.  

If the pitch is level, I leave the handbrake off and chock the wheels, even when on a site.

Thanks for the advice. It looks like I'll be leaving the brakes off over winter. I will try to remember to operate the lever from time to time to 'exercise' the linkages and cables.

This is beginning to look like the 'Jockey wheel up / down' debate...

A few replies to some of the points raised: the van is on my property and if it rolled away it would travel about 4ft before trying to get through the front door. The handbrake DOES work with the van wanting to roll backwards down the slope - it is man-handled into it's parking place and held on the brake 'til the chocks are in place. (I'm also fairly sure I've loosened the O/S wheelnuts and tightened the N/S ones with the van jacked up). Insurance? I haven't found a company that will insure a 13 year old caravan...

Thanks all!