I had noise coming from my rear brakes, and I felt groves on the inside of the rear rotors. The dealer refinished the rotors today and they are shiny and smooth on both sides, however my parking break will not hold the car at all. Today I pulled the parking brake all the way up at the gas station, it went a few clicks farther than normal. My car starting rolling away from the pump, imagine my surprise, I thought the ground was level!

Before this my parking brake would hold the car on some fairly steep angles. I'm hoping the rotor surface needs a break-in period and then the parking brake will hold again.

Is there a procedure I should do to break in the newly finished rotor surface?

 

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/show...+parking+brake


try post number 12. I know there is a how to with pics I just cant find it

 

pop the panel off, should be a 10mm deep socket and tighten up the cable

 

/\ bingo /thread

 

The dealer didn't do this why? They could probably do this in 5 minutes, it would probably take me a few days to buy the tools necessary and do this myself.

 

you only need a 10mm deep socket and a ratchet
that should tak 5min at hoime depot to nuy, and may another 5min in the parking lot to actually tighten the bolt and fix the e-brake

 

If you have the 5 lug wheels with disc rears, you should park in gear since the parking brakes are notoriously crappy.

 

I wrote a how-to on adjusting the e-brake

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/how-guide-43/how-adjusting-emergency-parking-brake-05-09-cobalt-w-rear-disc-brakes-168592/

 

Yes, I always park in gear and use the parking brake.

That is a really nice how to. Is the trim removal tool a flat head screwdriver?
Can I jack one side of the car at a time? I don't have jack stands, nor do I know where to put them.

 

Yes you could jack up one side at a time. I used a tool that resembles an angled "claw" that was designed to prevent scratching the plastic. You really want to use something that is dull and wide.

 

The brake started holding on it's own. Still might need adjustment, but it's useful now. I think that because the rotors were resurfaced, the pad material needed to transfer to the rotor before they could provide any useful stopping power. Similar to the bed in process for new brakes and pads, except I just had resurfaced rotors and old pads that were already bedded in.

 

It depends. If you were driving long enough to allow the rotors to heat up, that may be why it is grabbing better when you exited the vehicle. The ebrake issue stems from the fact that the metal shinks as it cools. With drum brakes, this is fine since the drum will tighten even more against the brake shoes... but witht he GM rear discs, it causes the ebrake to get looser as the discs cool off.