So my brother-in-law parks his 2000 Kia Sportage on the top of a steep driveway where he lives. I needed to move it so I asked him for the keys, then after I moved it I parked it back where it was and put in park and set the parking brake, which is the lever type you pull up between the front seats.

Next day, after he drove a short distance to his work and back with apparently no noticeable problems, he drove over to my place complaining that the "brakes were locked up." When I went out to see what he was talking about he drove the car a little to show me and it definitely sounded bad, a very loud rubbing sound coming from the wheels, as if the brake shoes or pads or whatever where definitely not releasing as the vehicle moved.

I told him that the other day when I moved it I noticed the parking brake wasn't set when I first got in, and that after I moved the car I had set the parking brake, did he happen to notice. He said he did notice and that he had kind of a hard time releasing the lever but managed. He also said he never sets the parking brake, just not in the habit.

So now the car sits in my driveway, and can't be driven until this brake thing is fixed. I haven't yet had a chance to look at anything. So what's the first thing to look at? Take off the front wheels and look, or rear wheels and look, try to get the drums off, crawl under there and look for some cables/linkage to release, WHAT? What probably happened and what'll it probably take to un-stick this brake business?

Its a KIA and just about everything about it is a PIA (Pain In Ass) when it comes to working on the thing.

 

Look at the cables that go to the parking brake. They get rusted and will hold brake on. Sometimes if you spray them with wd40 or something like that and hit them a ruber mallet the brake will pop off Usually they are stuck so bad you have to replace them. The only real fix is to replace cables. Some tomes the shoes will hang up but since he dosen't use parking brake I would start there. Parking brakes are there for a reason.