[johne]

As well as my stalling problems I'm also having trouble with the handbrake - it's non-existent!

The car was serviced by Pumaspeed in September and Tony tightened the handbrake cable. A week later I was parked on a downwards-sloping drive and when I reversed off the handbrake appeared to be stuck on. The car limped home and on getting out there was a distinct burning smell and the handbrake was reduced to a cosmetic accessory only.

This week I finally got round to tightening the cable back up, this resulted in the handbrake being harder to pull on but made no difference to it's lack of willingness to stop the car from moving, I can now drive around perfectly normally with the handbrake fully on which is vaguely amusing for scaring passengers but not so good for parking on hills or indeed any kind of gradient.

I've spoken briefly to a mechanic who has suggested that the calipers may be seized and this is why tightening the cable is having no effect (if so, preliminary investigations re: price for new calipers, handbrake cable etc comes to £250). Part of me is praying that its just going to be the cable but the way my luck's going at the moment I just know it's gonna cost....

[matty]

sounds like it needs to be looked at.

do the breaks work properly when driving?

maybe the handbreak cable is not connected properly / or streched?

i drive a fiesta, but i have noticed that the handbrake somtimes needs a bit of persuasion when taking the handbreak off, it somtimes seems to slip out of place and u have to jiggle it a bit to get the break off.

[happy-kat]

sounds like the problem Darren and Laura had on their FRP recently, the handbrake was sticking 'on' causing the smell and it failed the MOT, new cable and it was fixed I think. The handbrake set up on the FRP is not the same as the standard Puma. Have a search this was only posted about a month ago
Hope that helps

[johne]

Thanks for the replies, will try changing the cable and see if that works