3rd Gen - Rear Drum Brakes???

I bought an 06 Silverado brand new, my dad had a 05, exact same design. His 05 had disks and mine had rear drums. I always thought my brakes felt so much smoother than his and I believe Chevy had issues with the rear disks. I love the brakes in my 19taco, all thought they are touchy. I saw something about drums being more reliable for offroading and using Toyotas Crawl/MTS system, but who knows. Drums last a long time in the rear in my experience, but are a pain when it comes time to replace. I'd be surprised if you don't get 100k from the rear drums though.

 

Oh some of you bump this song on the way to work in your Kirkland khakis while dreaming of Costco Pizza. The middle manager lifestyle.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYh6mYIJG2Y

 

Just wait until you notice the drums rusting. You will make a new thread for that too so you can complain about your brand new truck rusting and you will have to get made fun of again.

 

I was disappointed to see them, but they work. Several companies make conversions - SOS Performance is probably worth checking out as they use 4Runner parts.

 

Drum brakes are on the truck to allow you to have a modulated parking brake that works. This is very important for people with manual transmissions and fellas who do serious off-roading.


There is no system for rear disc brakes that allows you to “throttle” or modulate the parking brake pressure with a hand lever in a way that is effective, while using both your feet, or a combination of gas/clutch/brakes etc. The new ‘fully on/or fully off’ electric parking brakes would be terrible off road, and for the manual tranny guys.

The drums are a gift to us from Toyota and we should all be thankful and write letters to Mike Sweers.

True facts:

1-Fellas who don’t like drums don’t actually notice any braking problem with their Tacoma, but really don’t like the look of those nasty rusty drums because mommy always praised them for a tidy room.

2-If Toyota ever removes drum brakes from the Tacoma I’m selling my Tacoma and my wife’s Camry in protest and buying us matching his/hers Rangers.

 

I almost thought you were being serious.

 

I am, mostly. There is truth in what I’m saying, but I agree the 98% of Tacoma owners want disc brakes and don’t care about the actual advantage of the drums, which is how well they work as a controllable parking brake.

The only reason anyone here ever complains about drums, is (possibly subconsciously) aesthetics, which is kinda fruity. The effectiveness of the Tacoma’s braking system is fine and drums are the better, but uglier choice on a truck most guys buy for the fashion statement.

 

Wait until OP finds out the stock headlight low/hi beams are halogen

 

My 2014 Wrangler was a manual and had rear disks, the hand brake was useless and total junk. The slightest incline and it was rolling back, I always stayed in gear when I parked, but what a joke.

 

^^^^ Further proof of my point.

There was no “I drove a Tacoma and the braking sucks”, or “I had a brake job and it was so expensive” from OP. Neither of these are the case

These threads always start with the exact same stupid statement of “I looked and there was rusty drums there...this is terrible.......it doesn’t match my trousers”.

It’s all about fashion and not at all about braking performance.

 

We'll agree to disagree my friend. To each, their own.

Rear discs have a drum slot and shoe and are plenty effective for parking, manual transmissions, off-roading etc.

I love my Tacoma and it's a beautiful and well designed machine. Most complaints I hear about them are superficial.

But to argue that rear discs are inferior to drums makes little sense.

At any rate, I don't care enough to carry on any further. Happy Friday

 

Rear discs parking brake systems have never been sorted out, other than what Ford is doing with the on or off electric brake, which is not helpful.

I had a brake problem (associated with my lift) that I hadn’t solved that almost left me stranded in the woods. I drove drove truck out with the ABS fuse pulled (TRD OR has electric booster), using the hand parking lever as my braking system. When you pull your ABS fuse on a taco, you’ve got nothing on the pedal. It was a godsend to have those drums and that hand brake lever.

Thank you Toyota for getting me home safely!!

 

I'll have to remember that trick for emergency use!

 

People generally “bow out and beers” when they are wrong. That’s fine.

That “baby brake shoe” that some disc systems have is not at all equal to having two full sized brakes under your control. Not even close.

If you ever look at the effort Toyota goes through to give you drum brakes, and how heavy-duty the parts are, you would understand.

 

Mine works as good as disk!

 

It’s a little scary, because you end up with most of your braking in the rear, which isn’t as effective as the front brakes, but it works in a pinch, with gearing down.

I was surprised how much braking force is added by the electric booster. With the fuse pulled, you have almost no braking, other than the parking brake.

 

The only downside to rear drums on a light duty pickup truck is style, and perhaps a little more work when the time comes to replace the shoes, but that is balanced out by the fact that they should last longer than pads. IMO of course.

 

I hit mine with rust converter spray because of my own vanity, but I did the same thing with my 20 year old Jeep TJ too.

Owning a 3rd gen. is giving me flashbacks to when I was active in the Jeep community and JK Wrangler people started coming around to complain about how it rode, start long drawn out build threads about how they spray painted all their vent bezels to match their exterior color, or start polls about which stupid Jeep slogan would be best for their spare tire cover or idiotic windshield banner (i.e. "If you can read this, roll me back over", "It's a Jeep thing", "Jeep hair don't care", and so on...)

 

No they don't if you look at comparisons the Tacoma stops worse but yes they are still effective enough for a light rear end small truck. Toyota uses them because they cost less.

 

The likelyhood that you will have to maintain anything on the rear drums of your 3rd gen Taco is, to say the least, minimal. Scratch a lottery ticket in a thunderstorm and hope to shockingly win type odds.

My 2nd gen 4runner with rear drums got over 200k out of the original drums and pads. I'd be beyond surprised if my Taco doesn't go at least as far. The only case in which you might wear quicker is if you are carrying a heavy load (not just a topper and a steel bumper) more often than not. Or maybe if you're using ATRAC and spinning the rear constantly.

The dynamics of stopping a truck dictate that the majority of stopping power (and wear) is in the front brakes.