Is it better to apply the parking brake before or after putting a car in park?

your mechanically inclined friend is a fool, the parking brake does not even need be applied in an automatic. the e brake is a weak link to the brakes in the rear that can stabilize a car but the parking brake is a solid link to the tans that will keep the car from moving.

when i curb my wheels to the curb the way you are suppose to on an incline or decline i always put my foot on the brake put it in park & then use the emergency brake.

remember my foot is on the brake pedal during the whole process.

i have had a few vehicles for a very long time & "never" had any problems.

the other answerers are correct i just do it this way.

hope this helps & good luck.

Always apply your parking brake, and always apply it first. That is what it is for. The park facility on the transmission is designed as a backup for the parking brake, it isn't meant to hold the car as the primary means of securing it.

First things first I hate your car! Secondly that is one steep incline! Now down to business. I believe that it is better for the car to set the parking brake first because it takes stress off of the transmission, and everything. Since the prius is front wheel drive there is less to worry about but still. However, these things are designed to handle that kind of stress anyway so it doesn't really matter in my opinion. But when it comes down to it, parking brake would be better and just let the parking brake do its job rather than having something else. Its like when people down shift to slow down. It's cheaper and more regular to change the brake pads than rebuild the transmission so its not worth saving the brake pads.

And sorry for the link, but I'm not at the same time :P

Just posted this and realized that he said basically the same thing! ^^^ Oh well! I can still whine about the car!

This is true because when you apply the parking brake after putting the car in park and letting the car settle you have put undue stress on the parking gear in the transmission. By applying the brake before letting the car settle the parking brake carries the load.

After letting the transmission carry the load for a long time you may experience it being hard to shift out of park when on an incline, or the parking gear in the transmission might fail altogether. I am not sure how the Prius transmission is designed, but in some cases you might lose other gears in the transmission, or the transmission might fail altogether when the park gear is damaged.

A transmission is expensive to repair. The parking brake is quite a bit cheaper. Let the Parking brake take the wear it was designed to, and save some cash in the future.

If you out the E-brake on first it will be better because if u put it in park first the car is resting on the gears not brakes