RBnDFW wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article , RBnDFW wrote:
Doug Miller wrote:
In article , RBnDFW
wrote:
Geez, if that thing is sitting on a hill with a loaded trailer and just
that parking pawl stopping it.....
Ever taken a transmission apart, and seen just how heavy that pawl actually
is? It's a pretty stout piece of very hard steel.
I probably have seen several, but the only one I really paid attention
to was way smaller than I would have liked it to be.
I've never trusted them since, always using the manual brake on hills,
and angling the steering to direct toward a curb or other stopper.

I had the opposite reaction: I'm much more trusting of the pawl after having
seen how large it is.

Maybe they were different transmissions

Perhaps folks are also forgetting the mechanical advantage the "little"
pawl in the transmission has due to the gearing past it in the
differential. The somewhat rare driveshaft parking brakes use the same
gearing advantage.