how many people have seen transmissions where the parking pawl has failed?
Fair question. I’ve only seen damage when cars were shifted into park while still at a slight roll. Maybe others have seen additional failure modes and can comment.
But of course. Whenever I use someone else’s stuff, I always try to heed their rules.
Just out of curiosity though, any idea what the cost of fixing a parking pawl versus parking brake is?
Well, I can’t dispute what you have or haven’t seen. I can say that the seven or eight cars that I have had all had/have good working parking brakes that would completely lock the rear wheels. You could drag the car, but the wheels wouldn’t turn. These all had/have either foot activated parking brakes or electric parking brakes. I did drive a car once with the kind of parking brake that you pull up by hand. As I recall, it didn’t hold like mine do.
I agree that many park brakes will not hold a car on a steep hill, espedially uphill. However, mine will.