Hi all, yes please laugh at me first lol.

This evening I was leaving my brother's home, it was dark and I drove my 2007 Suzuki Eiger 400 about half a mile at the very most on flat road doing 20mph before I noticed my parking brake was on.

I know this is the Polaris forum but I was hoping it would be alright to collect general ATV member response on this. I am a new member so apologies if this is against rules.

LOL first time it has happened.

I disengaged it and drove home. The bike seemed to drive as normal and the brake seemed to work fine and as it normally would. When driving with the brake on, the bike felt like normal I didn't notice it sluggish, or any smell. Important to note the parking brake has a lot of play before it begins to actually brake so maybe this is why I could pull away slowly and not feel any resistance and not notice it.

Should I be worried? Is the worst damage slight wear on the pads or discs (not sure what this model has and it's my first ATV)?

Man I am learning so much with this first bike and will now have a mental note after this happening to check that before driving lol.

I am sure I am not the first and I am sure I won't be the last.

I am terrified through my learning curves or wrecking this thing.

Thanks in advance for any insight or comments on this.

 

The only thing is that you added a bit of unnecessary wear to your brakes, nothing more. You didn't really hurt anything.

 

I almost set a truck on fire in the army that way. I didn't know anything was wrong until it started smoking really bad. It didn't seem to hurt anything. I think Greg is right.

 

I actually did this once on my first quad as well, a 2002 Polaris Trailblazer. I set the parking brake when I stopped and forgot to release it when i took off. I only went a couple hundred feet before I caught it. I took off and thought, "this thing doesn't have any power, what's wrong with it?" Then it was like oh the parking brake was still set. It didn't hurt anything. The Polaris cvt auto quads without low range didn't have a park setting in the transmission back then so setting the parking brake kept it from rolling when you stopped it.