2001 Suburban Parking Brakes

[DFWguy]

I'm sharing this as a public help notice .... perhaps it's already up elsewhere on the forum, though

I have a 2001 Suburban 1500 with 90,000 miles on it. I'm in Dallas, Tx and use it to tow ~50% of the mileage. It's always ran well and I've been very pleased with the vehicle.

BUT, from about 15,000 miles, the parking brake never seemed to hold well. The dealer repaired the brake under warranty for my first state inspection (at about 29,000 miles) on my 2 yr anniversary.

I grew up in Canada with road salt teaching you to ALWAYS use your parking brake every time you stop or you end up with siezed parking brakes.

Anyway, I bought the mechanic's story that this was normal wear ??? Shame on me.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this doesn't really make sense. At the 90k mileage point, I asked for the service mgr at my dealership and told him what was happening.

He told me that their was a GM technical service bulletin with a redesigned clip to hold the brakes shoes up (they drop down in normal use & are pulled back up when you engage/release parking brake).

Bottom-line, he asked me to write a short letter to the dealer, the service mgr gave it to the GM factory rep & they paid to replace the brakes and install the clip.

IF ANYONE IS failing their state inspection for parking brake failure, it is probably due to this cause. Your dealer will probably pay to replace if you raise the issue.

[ron in austin]

same problem here with parking brakes - except we don't tow and it wasn't a problem until now. 2001 suburban with about 90,000 miles failed inspection because parking brakes won't hold.

i'll take it up with GM to see if extended warranty will cover the repairs or if, like in your Dallas case, GM pays for it simply because they recognize it as a problem- squeaky wheel might get some grease?