My handbrake stopped working yesterday Speaking to my dealer its obvious that its not covered under warranty and so I guess its time to get my hands dirty!

I've taken the easy option first...lifted the "boot" floor to check the cable at the rear of the car and all seems intact. Operating the lever shows no movement to the cable going to the compensator so looks like the cable has snapped or the clevis pin on the lever has failed.

The big question is......is the mechanism accessible from under the car by the side of the gearbox or does it mean doing it from above which entails taking the transmission cover off? If the latter, I'm guessing that the seats need to come out to take the propshaft cover off before the trans cover can be lifted? Anyone got any tips?

Yep.
Get underneath and you can see it. Access is a bit of a fiddle.

Thanks Dave.....a nice little job for tomorrow I think!

How about just using a brick ?

Luckily I had another look at the rear of the cable, by the axle...having thought a bit more about it overnight! The cable to the handbrake lever is still attached and its obviously detached inside the offside rear drum. At least its saved me jacking up the car and grovelling under it in a cold garage!

The cars going back to my dealers in a couple of days for them to sort it....probably easy enough for me to do, but the garage will be colder and damper tomorrow no doubt and they only just serviced the car...including the brakes, last week!

Is this a cunning plan to get another go in the M3W??

It may turn out to be very hazardous on the bank balance to have too many M3W test drives.

Oh to be so naive!

Took the rear wheel off today assuming that something may just have come undone inside the brake drum......to find the brake cable to the drum snapped in half! A shame its the offside wheel.....it means the whole brake cable forward to the handbrake lever has to replaced...which is seats out, trans tunnel and gearbox cover off! According to Ben at Mike Duncans, its a problem they've come across a few times I really should tackle it myself but leaving it with them next week.

Jays,
Sorry for your trouble!! Hope you are back on the road without further mishap!!

Jay, you must have arms like Popeye