Warning: working on brakes? Don't do this!

[BIGTAZ351]

Well Not to revive a 6+ year old dead thread...

WeeYari
""^ but those will never, ever wear out. More accurate to state that you'll never have to deal with them."" (Drum Parking Brakes) Not always true...

I have a new body style 2004 F150 with 4 wheel disc brakes and drum parking brakes...
I have had to remove the parking brake shoes completely because since the truck was new...(Had 7 miles on it when I brought it home) I had it fixed under warranty (last dealer's fix UNHOOK THEM!) every time I would use them they would not disengage all the way drag, overheat, and ruin the rear wheel seals causing rearend oil to leak all over. After the last time, and 140K miles...I gave up and removed ALL of that CRAP!

My Father in Law had similar issues with his GMC...Yet my Disc/Drum Chevy, no issues in fact, I never put rear brakes in it, in the 198,000 miles I drove it.

My Blue 2010 Yaris has 140K and rear drums haven't needed service yet...(Probably Soon) and every vehicle even my focus with 4 wheel discs rear pads were going bad (usually from road grime getting into them) just ad fast or faster than the front pads...

If I had my choice ALL of my vehicles would be Disc/Drum....heck I drove 30,000lb trucks with 4 wheel hydraulic drum brakes!

[suprf1y]

Originally Posted by BIGTAZ351

If I had my choice ALL of my vehicles would be Disc/Drum....heck I drove 30,000lb trucks with 4 wheel hydraulic drum brakes!

Me too. I see no advantage to rear disc on street driven cars. Drum brake are actually very good at what they do. The only downside is that they build up heat quickly and fade which is not an issue on the street.

You see a lot of people upgrading their drum brakes to disc on models where that's an option. I would NEVER do that.

[B.B._07]

Originally Posted by suprf1y

Me too. I see no advantage to rear disc on street driven cars. Drum brake are actually very good at what they do. The only downside is that they build up heat quickly and fade which is not an issue on the street.

You see a lot of people upgrading their drum brakes to disc on models where that's an option. I would NEVER do that.

I agree that rear drums are superior from a durability and reliability point of view, but they loose out to discs in stopping power. It's not really an issue on a light car like a Yaris or even a Civic but anything bigger and you really need discs in the back to keep the stopping distances down. That's why you don't see rear drums on larger cars or SUV's.