Allagash27
Well-Known Member
I can understand that-the parking brake on my '03 LIberty barely worked brand new and only got worse from there. Did the TJ have that same stupid baby drum brake inside the disc housing for a parking brake? I had nothing but trouble with those. My two Jettas had rear discs and the parking brakes worked great, so I knew it could be done, just that Chrysler didn't seem to have figured it out yet. So far the parking brake on my JL seems to work great.The drivetrain is laid out like this:
engine --> transmission --> transfer case --> driveshaft
With the transfer case in neutral the driveshaft is disconnected from the transmission. So nothing in your transmission will move. If you can get into any Jeep and pull the transfer case to neutral, the Jeep will roll away (assuming the brake isn't set). Luckily that's pretty tough to do when the vehicle is sitting still so it's unlikely some kid playing in your Jeep is going to roll away in it.
Jeep rolling away was always one of my fears with my TJs. I tend to not have the top or doors on my Jeeps and the TJs I had were manual transmissions and the parking brake sucked. I always worried some kid would climb in it to play and pull it out of gear. Because of that fear I have long had the habit of turning my wheels fully to the left or right when I shut it off. I still do it today with the JL, but since we don't have steering column locks it probably wouldn't make much difference if the Jeep decided to roll away. Luckily with the automatic transmission and a parking brake that works well my fear is probably completely ridiculous now (if it wasn't always).