Hey all,

Hoping for some advice.

I spilled a very small amount of a drink on my center console, it went into the parking brake e-brake lever.

I cleaned it as much as I could in the moment. I came home and a few hours later tried to go out but couldnt release the brake and get a "Parking Brake Malfunction" error on the screen.

The red light is lit, but the brake wont release.

I got a thin piece of absorbent paper and slid it all around the area. Underneath it when the lever is lifted produced some moisture, otherwise it was clean. I hit it with a hair dryer for a little while.

At the moment its still stuck.

Please tell me this is a matter of it drying out and it will be fine :-)

 

If you spill a liquid on a electrical device you should turn it off until its dry for future reference. If the parking brake had power being applied to that switch its very likely it shorted itself out. The good news is that switch comes out of the center console and the switch isn't all THAT expensive.....maybe
To remove the MMI panel you just have to pull out the cup holders, open the ash tray and pull the removable panel, take out the torx bolt and remove the rest of the ash tray, unbolt the ac control panel (i think) then the entire wood panel should swing forwards, up, and out. I remember having to move the shift lever all the way back to get it out though.

 

Whew... it dried out, the brake is normal again. I think the hair dryer made a big difference.

 

Lucky man, I never ever ever! have open drinks up there. Only gatorade and water bottles with tops. If my girl has mcdonalds in a decent sized cup and if its full it sits in her lap until its about half gone so it doesn't have the chance to spill on the huge design fault location I call the MMI center.

 

Well you have to see it from the crazy german view. They feel you shouldn't have time to grab your coffee while driving 120 mph on the autobahn to work and you're too busy enjoying the ride to work, thats what they build them for afterall. I remember one of the (american) german engineers telling me they hate cup holders, and only after they design the car they figure out where to put the cup holders. Only in the Q7 are the cup holders actually designed to be in the correct spot.....mainly because that car was designed for americans.

 

I always found it hilarious that my '01 D2 has exactly ONE cup holder in the entire car...the rear seat only has a tray, NOT actual cupholders. But I have always only put capped drinks in my holder. My wife is not allowed to bring a drink into my car...or even drive it actually (emergencies only). You'd have to see the inside, the tires and the undercarriage of her car....then you'd understand. She wears out cars like other people wear out shoes

P.S. She does NOT read this forum

 

^^^better hope not LOL.

 

Lol by the undercarriage being bad do you mean it's all ripped up from dirt roads and speedbumps etc, as well as the tires?
Good luck, I'm sure she's a lovely one off the road though

 

Absolutely...love her to death...and she treats our pets and her horse VERY well. But if I were her car, I wouldn't like her one bit.

We do have some primitive roads around here, esp out where we keep the horse...but, example: I was riding with her one day on a good road and there was a big unidentified "lump" in the road ahead. I told her NOT to straddle it. She didn't think is was a problem...well, it was a big rock about 2 inches taller than her ground clearance...new trans oil pan...leak was slow enough to make it home.

Big gouges in the undercoating everywhere and the belly pan (under the engine) looks like it might have been used in the Baja 1000 or maybe came off a space shuttle...I've got metal clips I fabricated holding it together and in place. This was a CPO when she bought it and everything was perfect...I checked it!
Tires...well for some reason, she attracts nails like a magnet, but doesn't notice half flat tires and takes corners like a Formula 1 driver (always in a hurry). TWICE, she has actually eaten through the side wall of the tire cornering hard on about 6 pounds of pressure.

She spills stuff in her car constantly. I was doing an electrical repair under her dash a couple of weeks ago and put my hand in some "mystery" goop. I showed it to her later, she said it was gravy and it was MY fault because I'm the one who asked her to bring home KFC the other day.

On the rare occasions I let her drive mine, I tell her to treat it like it's made of thin glass, NO drinks ....and "you wreck it, you own it!"

She doesn't see cars as living things like I do...I only say nice things to mine