there is a common problem experienced by many magna owners to do with the rear brakes not disengaging properly after releasing the handbrake. it makes a loud metal scrapping and squeaking sound when this happens. what is it actually and is it necessary to go to mitsu to get them to adjust it back to spec?

The rear brakes callipers and the park brake are seperate items, the handbrake works inside the rear brake disc, it has two shoes of its own to operate the handbrake, so that's where the adjustment is, and is easy to do yourself, you must remove the wheel and the brake calliper and the brake disc first before you can start adjusting though, and it is a little round nut with grooves on it, inbetween the two shoes, adjusting this nut will increase the handbrake power or decrease it.
Also the shoes might be sitting to low, because of the way they set it up, at least in my te, they have a flimsy bracket under the shoe bracket to hold it in place, as time goes on the bracket opens a little and the shoes move downwards so they start to rub on the inside of the rear disc brake and make a noise, probably the one your hearing right now.

do you know if this is necessary to rectify? cos i am ok with the noise, it goes away after a while. and if it comes on, a couple of handbrake turns should do the trick :D

Mine (TE) does exactly the same thing.

When I got my last roadworthy (NSW) The guy said it was a little dodgy, but becuase it went away it passed.

-Dan

Common Magna problem:

Yep same thing in both my TFs and my mums TF for that matter, Yep its the Rear drum setup as mentioned earlier, but you can adjust it without taking the raer calipers and disks off, but his will not get rid of the sqeaking sound.

DO NOT do handbrake turns to get rid of the noise :lol: ,

Just slightlly jerk the handbrake in a quick up n down motion a couple of times without fully engageing it or locking the wheels.