E brake
I'll bet someone changed the brakes before you got the car and didn't know that the e-Brake needs to be adjusted to the new rotor bores. (It is a PITA to do.)

here is a pic of what the mechanism sort of looks like behind the rear rotor
#8 is the cylinder that expands outward when you pull the parking brake handle, and it expands the shoes against the inside of the rear rotor. in the middle of #8 is a thing you can rotate it to force the shoes outward more when the parking brake handle is not engaged. it's very simple.
what will happen is if the car is driven with the parking brake left on it can kill the shoes, or if your in the rust belt and water gets in there rust will form and lock things up until you drive then break the parking shoe. or the mechanism can rust completely to the backing plate like it did on my truck and you can pull or depress the parking brake which is a spring loaded cable but never move the shoes.
all that needs to be done is to remove the rear rotor on each side then turn the adjuster on the cylinder to get the shoes expanded as much as possible while still being able to get the rear rotor back on. then when you pull the parking brake handle the shoes will engage quickly. and you don't need the shoes in pristine condition, it only needs to have a little bit of shoe material on each side for it to work. but if the shoes are really shot, you can buy a parking brake kit which includes the shoes #3 along with all the other parts in the pic expect the backing plate #1 and #2. if you tear into it, you also want to grease up #8 and #5 with brake caliper grease.
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It's possible that a change could make the mechanism tighter instead of looser, but in that case - the pads would burn down if any drag is introduced from a smaller bore.
In Pittsburgh, you'd definitely notice if the e-Brakes were loose! (I miss the hills and need to take a trip sometime soon...)
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here is a pic of what the mechanism sort of looks like behind the rear rotor
#8 is the cylinder that expands outward when you pull the parking brake handle, and it expands the shoes against the inside of the rear rotor. in the middle of #8 is a thing you can rotate it to force the shoes outward more when the parking brake handle is not engaged. it's very simple.
what will happen is if the car is driven with the parking brake left on it can kill the shoes, or if your in the rust belt and water gets in there rust will form and lock things up until you drive then break the parking shoe. or the mechanism can rust completely to the backing plate like it did on my truck and you can pull or depress the parking brake which is a spring loaded cable but never move the shoes.
all that needs to be done is to remove the rear rotor on each side then turn the adjuster on the cylinder to get the shoes expanded as much as possible while still being able to get the rear rotor back on. then when you pull the parking brake handle the shoes will engage quickly. and you don't need the shoes in pristine condition, it only needs to have a little bit of shoe material on each side for it to work. but if the shoes are really shot, you can buy a parking brake kit which includes the shoes #3 along with all the other parts in the pic expect the backing plate #1 and #2. if you tear into it, you also want to grease up #8 and #5 with brake caliper grease.









