I thought I would resurrect this post rather than starting a new one.
I've been having a gradual worsening of the effectiveness of my handbrake for the last couple of years.
The handbrake mechanism consists of a short front cable that connects to a bracket holding two individual cables that run the rear offside and near side calipers respectively.
I initially addressed it by tightening the front cable from the handbrake adjustment screw, which sufficed for a few months.
But now, when I'm on an incline of more than say 1in10, the handbrake will no longer hold the car.
To investigate I checked and bled the brakes for good measure and proved that the rear brakes were working effectively by jacking the car up and having someone press the brake pedal. In normal driving, the car doesn't pull to the left of the right when braking, so I don't think it's a case of a faulty caliper.
So with the car jacked up, I tested the effectiveness of the handbrake and found that whilst the near side does activate when the handbrake is pulled, it looks as if the cable is stretched to the point it cannot fully pull on the caliper side mech. When I look at the cable lengths entering the car, the left/near side cable appears 3 inches longer as the joining bracket sits askew.
I've read a lot of posts on this and other forums suggesting the calipers have a self adjusting mechanism or even a manually adjustable mechanism, however upon visual inspection and a review of the workshop manual there is no evidence to suggest either exist. If anyone has evidence to suggest otherwise, it would be useful to know.
I recently changed the rear pads and inspected the discs and calipers at that time and found nothing too concerning, as I did suspect a corrosion on the caliper piston - which could be expected for a vehicle that's covered 150,000miles.
I can only assume that the problem I'm experiencing is down to cable stretch. My car has been parked mostly on slopes since I've owned it at work and home. Anyhow, I'm off to order a new set of rear cables so I'll find out in the next week or so what the root cause is. There is a slim chance it could still be an issue with the near side caliper but changing the rear cables for £35 is less messy and slightly cheaper than a new caliper at £53. I could buy a caliper piston refurb kit for £20, but two hours saved is worth £33 to me.
BTW. I wasn't impressed with the quality of the Pagid replacement front cable. The metalwork should be certified as dangerous. I was able to unhook the two rear cables without attached to the original unit without looking, once the centre cup holder was out and the handbrake slackened. However, I had to give up fitting the new one after a few minutes as my hands looked as if they'd just arm-wrestled Edward Scissorhands. I resorted to removing the six screws to disassemble the central console and armrest unit.