Changing the pads on your car’s brakes is a pretty straightforward and inexpensive process on most vehicles. However, many modern vehicles having electronic parking brakes giving manufacturers a new avenue to paywall simple DIY repairs.
Most EVs will rarely, if ever, need to replace their mechanical brake pads as in most driving situations the car will be predominantly relying on regenerative braking to slow down. A hot hatch like the Ioniq 5N, however, might go through brakes a lot faster if it spends a lot of time at the track, which is what happened with Reddit user [SoultronicPear].
Much to their chagrin, despite buying the required $60/wk subscription to the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF) and the $2,000 interface tool, [SoultronicPear]’s account was suspended because it was not intended for use for anyone but “service professionals.” Not exactly a Right-to-Repair friendly move on Hyundai’s part. After trying a number of different third party tools, they finally found a Harbor Freight T7 bidirectional scan tool was able to issue the parking brake retract command to perform the pad swap, albeit not without throwing some error codes in the process.
Electrification of vehicles should simplify repairs, but manufacturers are using it to do the opposite. Perhaps they should read our Minimal Motoring Manifesto? There is a glimmer of hope in the promises of Slate and Telo, but we’ll have to see if they make it to production first.
I suspect the gent who diy’d an EV Fiat 600 here in Portland some years back was on the right track. At least he won’t be subject to corporate greed mongers when he wants to fix something.
This kinda of thing just ensures I will never buy a Hyundai.
Lol shit cars that will have a catastrophic failure before 50k miles
And that is the easy part… just wait for knock to kick you in the balls every 2 weeks
You can say that about most new cars those days…
Well the ev probably won’t knock.
Probably. If anyone could manage, it’s Hyundai.
Careful guys, your age is showing…
I’m old enough to get your references, young enough to know they haven’t been true for a quarter of a century.
If i wasn’t so old i forgot, i could name many car brands that went this route with proprietary parts, tools and assembly processes.
Hyundai is not the only company doing this. Volvo, for example, although there is a roundabout way to do this mechanically. Worse, try to service a Volvo. You have to pay to READ the service manual to find such things as torque specs. A NHTSA safety issue, IMO.
The mechanical workaround is a good option. I have used it on occasion when scan tool coverage was not available. For those interested, most (all that I have encountered) rear brake calipers with electronic parking brakes use a standard Allen or torx drive to couple the parking brake motor to the caliper. All it takes is removing the motor from the caliper and winding the piston back. They are made this way so that when the vehicle has no power, you are able to get it rolling to ease service.
Why do that. 9v battery. Applied in reverse retracts the mechanism. One batter and the terminal with wires. Pull plug Apply in reverse voltage. Wait for the motor to stop. Done.
Farmers have been fighting this for years, loosing the use of equipment during harvest can be disaster.
My sister has needed to drive over 100 miles one way to get a part they needed to get a harvester back working. Tough way to make a living.
Or worse. Trailering the harvester to nearest shop. BS.
Note that this is not a treat (threat) of electric vehicles, but of the ongoing computerization of vehicles. I guess Hyundai will happily pull off the same trick in their petrol vehicles.
Volvo already did, years ago.
I think if we the consumer (you know the guy who spends the cash on these garbage goods) keep accepting products DESIGNED to MAKE US PAY un heard of and high prices for what should be simple upkeep and maintenance tasks, this trend will wind up being normal! Wait until people start getting killed because some one didn’t think his breaks were bad enough to pay $1000 bucks to replace!
electric parking brake should include a hard switch that puts the system in service mode, until the system is started and put in drive! no special data terminal, no subscription service needed! Better and more automation shouldn’t mean new costly services added to systems, Smart designs monitor and regulate themselves, that hard switch make it only work when that service is called for! REFUSE to buy non user serviceable products AND if some company slicks one by and you find a service not able to happen w/o Major cash at the dealer SUE The pants off of them!! Make it known publicly as well dont settle if they want a NDA!
well, to Hyundais defence it might not be related to making $$$ here.
The whole EPB system has very likely a lower ASIL classification as it prevents obvious hazards or is providing a fallback protection.
With that many systems may require a cyber security assessment and the whole thing gets tough, if the TARA finds yellow/red items (see ISO21434). And some “temper protection” is a mitigation for some cases.
Sometimes the automotive safety guys are even tougher than the bean counters… ;)
Shouldn’t it be like in BMW? Just connect directly 12v to brake and wait until it unlocks?
That is a very dangerous assumption, since brake components will corrode if not regularly used. If you drive your car like a granny, always brake with the motor/regen and feather the brake pedal, chances are your brakes will get stuck after a winter or two. That’s because the brakes never get hot, the hydraulic pistons don’t move but a tiny bit, and rust and dirt accumulates everywhere and isn’t removed by the mechanical action of using the brakes.
The next time you have to use the mechanical brakes, you’ll find that they grind and stutter, and may no longer release after you let go of the pedal.
Same thing with regular cars: if you don’t drive much and the car’s just sitting on the parking lot, whenever you do drive, the first few miles the brakes are going to feel awful. Take it up to highway speed and brake hard on the off-ramp (make sure nobody’s behind you), repeat once or twice, and the grinding and stuttering clears away. If you didn’t do that regularly, the pistons would start to jam and the pads would move closer and closer to the discs until they start to drag. Running the brakes hot now and then makes the components expand from the heat and pushes the pistons back into their cylinders, restoring the clearances and working the grime out of the gaps.
For reading:
https://doi.org/10.56578/pmdf020203
The takeaway is that manufacturers can apply surface treatments and coatings to extend the lifespan of new brake discs/pads in EV use, but the long term performance when the parts inevitably do wear down and the surface treatments are lost is a different concern.
In other words, the brakes will perform well for a while, and then start deteriorating faster in the lack of use like regular brakes would. It doesn’t solve the issue, it delays the symptoms – most likely just long enough to put the car out of warranty or off the hands of the first owner, adding to the problem of mounting “maintenance debt” with second hand vehicles. Instead of fixing the problems while they’re small and relatively cheap to remedy, they’re left to accumulate until small problems become big costly problems.
The reason why cars eventually get taken off the road and scrapped is often because they develop multiple simultaneous problems that require repairs exceeding the market value of the car, so it’s cheaper to just replace the car at once instead of attempting to maintain it. If you’re looking at a brake system overhaul, battery system overhaul, and whatever else in the span of the next few years, you’d be a fool to pay a lot of money for the car. That creates a sharp drop in the value of second hand EVs beyond a certain age. That goes back to the first point: when soon to be broken EVs can be bought for a song, it makes more sense to just get another one and drive it until it breaks. Treat it as a hot potato – get rid of it as soon as it starts to burn your hand.
The design point of “no maintenance required” turns it into a disposable product. This lack of a second life and the rapid loss of value shifts the cost onto the first owner, making EVs less affordable to new car buyers.
The article has a lot of yapping when it could have just said EV brake systems need reevaluating.
It doesn’t matter how much you “granny” the brakes, you are going to use the pads enough to prevent your hypothetical problems.
I’ve run into something similar while rowing gears in my old manual Camry forever ago, I engine braked so much that the rotors started to rust while driving! Never got to the point of calipers locking up but I can see how that would occur.
2018 Toyota Camry Hybrid with 100K miles is here . Original breakpads are still good.
I’m not fan of hyundai, but let’s be honest, they’re nor the first or the worst in this. Volkswagen (car i own personaly), but not only them, don’t let you change rear braking pads on cars with electric parking brake without a diagnostic tool. Modern cars have displays and electronics more than enough to avoid to use diagnostic tools. But people still give them money, why would they not continu to do so?
i’ve seen comments by mechanics saying that they use a drill battery with a plug/socket to attach to the electric parking brake to retract it. maybe people are overreacting here when there is a low tech solution.
I was going to say, it’s an electric motor doing something you don’t want? Unplug it and power it yourself.
As far as I remember, Audi was the first brand to pull this trick off, fully engaging the e-brake when you pulled the pads out, ICE vehicles.
That’s a total boycott of hyundai for me, and im a auto tech who would theoretically benefit from this.
That’s dumb. So his money isn’t good enough for them? They expect him to take the car to a shop that has already paid instead of giving them more money than they would have received otherwise?
I may or may not have done this more times than the average folk has ever done a brake job. As long as the electronic parking brake motor is a 2 pin connector, it’s just a dc motor. Jump 12v across the pins with your piston depressor tool in place. Either the parking brake motor engages or retracts. If it retracts, sweet. If it engages switch polarity and try again. No scan tool needed!
Crap like this is why I drive a 1998.
cars and appliances shouldn’t need accounts.
Ok, naive question, but can’t you just chock the wheels, start the car and throw it in neutral?
When replacing pads they are usually worn, you need to retract the brakes more to fit the new thicker pads over the rotor. Especially if you also use a new rotor that is also thicker.
Either way he could have investigated driving the brake motor directly and bypassed the computer entirely.
I’d be surprised if a commercial product for operating the brakes off the car doesn’t exist. Also can probably make your own for $5-30, even if it’s a stepper motor or brushless.
It’s a small electric motor no? Why not forget the computer and use a motor controller to retract fhe pads?
Unless the computer keeps track of the motor position by counting the motor rotation.
This area seems ripe for hacking and you should try to avoid the computer when messing with service items.
This is as dumb as ‘coding’ your 12v lead acid battery. If replacing like for like (EG: SLA for AGM) I just keep power to the computer with a trickle charger and swap the battery out.
If anyone comes up against this problem in their own life I got the solution.
I bought a controllable power supply on amazon, and used that to retract the motors on the EPC.
Flat mate of mine had an Audi Q2 and 3 garages said they couldn’t change the brakes because they didn’t have the subscription that Audi makes them buy.
The car will throw a bunch of errors but it will sort itself out after turning it off and on again
While this does sound pretty bad, there’s nothing stopping you from turning the EPB off. There certainly are safety concerns about essentially having your car in neutral while replacing brakes but it’s something to consider. The article title is misleading.
The frustrating thing is that the interface to the car is just CAN (either running native or J1939 protocols). Its a commodity and, furthermore, the objects needed to work the parking brake motor should be standard ones. The electronics should assist the user, not lock them out with spurious demands for special interfaces and spurious user accounts. But then vehicle makes see this as ‘revenue streams’ and will continue to do so right up to the point that they find out (too late) that the customer base has collapsed. (Unfortunately we live in the US where customer choice is heavily restricted….)