Are drum brakes still a thing? (vehicle, pickup truck, buy, replacing)
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For no particular reason, I was thinking about this the other day. Do any cars or trucks still come with drum brakes?
Disk brakes seem to be better, less complicated, and probably cheaper to make, but I remember them being a special option for a long time.
In my opinion, since so little of your breaking is actually needed to come from the rear, drum brakes are fine back there for most vehicles, but if discs are cheaper to make like I suspect they are, I wonder how they held on for as long as they did.
I believe only some smaller compact, sub-compact to tiny cars still use drum brakes for the rear such as the Nissan Sentra.
I don’t know why drum brakes are even still around as you’d think it would cost the automakers more money to produce drum brakes since they’re more parts involved. Disc brakes, you have a rotor and a caliper, that’s really it! Voila simple.
Yes drum brakes suck, and take more time time to service, are heavier and have more parts that need replacing if something fails, like a tension spring and a leaky wheel cylinder which is detrimental to the drum and brake shoes.
They aren’t very efficient either, but since most modern cars have front discs brakes, and rear drums, the rear brakes need less servicing.
Depending on the make and model, drums can actually cost more than a typical rotor. Usually brake shoes are pretty cheap compared to a set of brake pads, but the downside of brake shoes is that in some applications they don’t offer higher quality braking material like ceramic like you can get in brake pads, so the performance and longevity of the shoes are usually less than a set of pads.
They aren’t very efficient either, but since most modern cars have front discs brakes, and rear drums, the rear brakes need less servicing.
Depending on the make and model, drums can actually cost more than a typical rotor. Usually brake shoes are pretty cheap compared to a set of brake pads, but the downside of brake shoes is that in some applications they don’t offer higher quality braking material like ceramic like you can get in brake pads, so the performance and longevity of the shoes are usually less than a set of pads.
On the upside, drum brakes are fairly quiet.
I have a 2004 Honda Civic with front disc and rear drum brakes that I bought new. My rear drums are original and will probably outlast my car.
Drum brakes are, on the rear, lighter, and easier to make into purely mechanical parking brakes, therefor cheaper cars will often still use them on the rear. Since 80% of street braking comes from the front brakes due to weight transfer, then using the slightly inferior braking ability on the rear isn't a noticeable loss, and fade will not be an issue.
GM pickups are still using rear drums though I had a couple years back that had rear discs. I was shocked to see the drums return.
They had to many problems with rear disk brakes so they went back to drums in the rear, with are better because they hardly were out since all the weight is in the front unless you are hauling heavy loads in your truck bed and drum brakes are cheaper to manufacture for GM about $5 a truck now people would say $5 isent allot but if you make 1.4 million pickups a year that $5 adds up big time to the tune of 7 million dollars.
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Drum brakes on the rear axle of a pickup truck makes complete sense. From a cost, maintenance, and performance standpoint manufacturers are returning to drums.
Yes, drums are still a thing, a sucky thing compared to disks. A drum gets out-of-round, many times it is a lot worse than when a disk gets really worn with ridges.
Drum brakes on the rear axle of a pickup truck makes complete sense. From a cost, maintenance, and performance standpoint manufacturers are returning to drums.
I wouldn't buy any vehicle with drum brakes.
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