What the deal with the drum brakes?

What is the deal with the taco still having drum brakes? Come on toyota is about one of the last companys still installing drum brakes on their cars. Besides like chevy aveos and ford fukus's not many vehicles manufactured with drum brakes.
Now dont get me wrong drum brakes arent all that bad, but do have less stopping power than discs and a bitch to change. w/e just my 2C

 

No they don't. You can build disc or drum brakes to any specification.

The one major area that disc brakes do better at is heat dissipation. Have you had problems with rear brake fade? I sure haven't.

The other area discs do better in is adjustment. Discs adjust continually by the nature of the design. Drums have mechanical adjusters that can get bound up and need cleaning.

 

Parking brakes - hold better with Drums

 

I have not had problems with my 2010 tacoma as it is new, but I have had problems with brake fade, adjustment and stopping a 16ft car trailer i use to tow my wheelin rig in my 4x4 ranger. I converted the rear to discs on the ranger and it was at least 2x better at braking.

Trust me when coming down a sharp hill with 5000lbs + behind you those brakes start to scream, and heat up like a mofo. The drums have little to no way of venting this heat.

I have not towed my trailer yet with this tacoma, but we shall see my friend.

 

If it ain't broke...don't fix it.

Besides.... if they moved to discs in the rear, they'd have to redesign everything else (master caliper, proportioning, ABS, programming, yadda yadda yadda).

Give 'em time.... Everything will have discs eventually. The brakes are fine (although everyone complains about them anyway ).

With all the stuff going on right now with Toyota....I think disc brakes are the last concern on their list of things to do.

 

Does your trailer have brakes? Perhaps they need to be adjusted to apply more braking??? If the trailer brakes are setup properly (via brake controller), the vehicle doing the towing shouldn't have any problem with braking.

 

Don't you have trailer brakes? DO they work?

You should probably have trailer brakes for that load, every truck is going to struggle given that load.

 

I know drum brakes work fine, but by 2010, every new car and truck should come with 4 wheel discs. JMO.

 

I too have same concern in the past. Now my 2010 is almost 15,000 miles. I have tow 4,500 pounds and had no problem with brakes on downhill. As long before going downhill, change your shift to lower gear.

I was on the street, somehow the taco dog run on the street quick. I slam my brake and it didn't hit the dog. I slam the brakes some other time when stupid driver did not pay attention to other car ahead of them or talking on the damn cell phone.

Drum brakes on tacoma suit me fine. I would like to have 4 disc brakes but I get used to it.

 

I think the taco's stop ok. But my reason for discs is the ease of changing out pads vs. shoes.

 

Rear disk brakes on Tacoma's are for marketing and looks.

 

ya my trailer has brakes. idk maybe im just used to my ram 2500.

 

For those that actually take the Taco off road drums are better at keeping out mud and junk

I like them

 

Sports cars ok off road trucks NO

 

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Drum vs. Disc: Today[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In today's automotive pantheon, it's not uncommon to find four-wheel disc brakes as standard equipment on medium-priced, non performance-oriented models. The majority of new vehicles, however, continue to utilize a front-disc/rear-drum brake setup. What does this say about the current state of braking systems? Are these manufacturers sacrificing vehicle safety in order to save a few bucks by installing disc brakes on only the front wheels? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While a "yes" answer would certainly be great for increasing Town Hall traffic, the truth is that today's disc/drum setups are completely adequate for the majority of new cars. Remember that both disc and drum brake design has been vastly improved in the last 20 years. In fact, the current rear drum brake systems on today's cars would provide better stopping performance then the front disc setups of the '70s. And today's front disc brakes are truly exceptional in terms of stopping power. Combined with the fact that between 60 and 90 percent of a vehicle's stopping power comes from the front wheels, it's clear that a well-designed, modern drum brake is all that's required for most rear wheel brake duty. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]High performance cars like the Viper, 911 and Corvette can justify a four-wheel disc brake system, especially if their owners participate in some form of sanctioned racing activity on the weekends. The rest of us get more of a benefit from the lower cost of drum brakes. Expecting every vehicle built today to come with four-wheel disc brakes would require an across-the-board increase in purchase price, and that could stop new car buyers much quicker than any brake system. [/FONT]

 

Every vehicle I have ever owned with discs in the rear have been more trouble than they were worth. From caliper and parking brake issues to having to replace the pads nearly 3:1 compared to shoes - I'll keep the drums.

 

ummm.... trailer brakes bud.

 

I don't mind the drum breaks. I just hate the way they look through my rims. I would like to dupi color them black, but I don't know if that would look good or not.

I've towed a few times. Once pushing the wieght limits of the hitch. Gone up and down mountains. I've never had any problems.

 

This I disagree...discs have natural cleaning as there is no where for the crap to go but off the disc, on the converse, drum brakes' capacity is dramatically reduced when wet and once thin mud and sand get up in the drum, you can pretty much count on a rear brake job, having done a fair amount of mudding, I can say this is the case, at least for me and homeys!

I've seen this question poised in the 4x4 magazines directly to Toyota and they say that the drum brakes are adequate for the application (paraphrasing)...that being said, as a previous poster (sorry for not quoting you!) drums can be designed to meet most specifications, within reason.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both applications! I had a 2000 Jeep Wrangler with mild lift/tire combo and wanted to be sure that stopping when going down hill while wet was possible w/o to much a$$hole puckering..I converted the rear to disc relatively easy, came with a new proportioning valve, new rotors, new calipers and all the associated pieces and the Jeep stopped far superior (I have zero mathematical or statistical data to quote, but by seat-of-the pants testing, it seemed more better)