Why drum brakes?

My 66 year old father just bought a BMW X5, and the manual is stored in the HU (computer)... he's screwed...

 

He'll be OK. He has you!

 

Drum breaks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE1Kb7W8XlY

 

https://youtu.be/sBJO3Zj-Sv0

 

At least it takes that book that almost no one reads from the glove box. Think of the space. Real question, how do you check the manual to operate the HU if you don’t know how?

 

It's surprisingly intuitive... unless you were born in the 50's...

 

But some folks need to read the how to before they try.

 

I do remember working on drum brakes on the cars I had when I was younger. Those were economy cars made in the 80s to 90s most had drums for rear brakes except the prelude. I dislike the springs and stuff there are more parts than disc. The upside is they need serviced less. Don't get contaminated as easy. They do the job more quietly too.
They just work. I was thinking about rears not being disc was a step back when I considered the Tacoma.
There are so many other things that I considered it became not important. In 2 months of driving it I honestly can't say I noticed that there is any difference in the brakes in comparison to how well other vehicles I've owned or driven that were 4 wheel disc to the Tacoma. They work more than well enough for the truck in my opinion.

 

Drum brakes work. Why change it if it works.

 

Toyota Yaris also has rear drum brakes.
Toyota determined that the Yaris has superior braking when used off-road while driving on gravel and through mud and water.
So Toyota fitted drum brakes on the rear of the Tacoma.
Tacoma=Yaris=Tractors

 

I'd rather have disc brakes. If drum were better, why are they not on the front?

 

Yaris are great gas savers

 

They use drum brakes because they are inexpensive and work "ok" as rear brakes. As stated before, it allows them to drop the $$ saved and put it into TSS or something else. The Taco is a "play" truck. Nobody really buys one to haul or tow with, and the drum brakes are fine. Obviously, disk brakes perform much better, but in the mission envelope of the TOYota they do the job. Since all the workings of a drum brake are "inside" the drum, they can't approach the thermal efficiency of disc brakes, where everything is out in the airflow and as a result, run cooler when doing hot laps and with much less fade. Oh, some manufacturers (decades ago, when they still made drum braked vehicles) will put these goofy "fins" around the circumference of the drum to improve heat transfer but really, it doesn't do much. Since Tacos are mostly for commuting and playing around, stout, efficient discs would just be wasted $$

 

Put it in the same “might someday need this” box in the garage with your timing light and dwell tach meter.

 

If you use drum brake oil in the engine, you'll only need to check it every 50k and change it every 100k.

 

My 2001 tundra had around 150k miles on the rear shoes before i replaced them, and they still had some meat on them. The front discs pads and rotors didn't last 40k before i had to replace them with higher quality drilled and slotted rotors. After that all was good for twice that before needing new pads.

 

Hope you never want to use a knife. Thats pretty old tech. LOL.

 

1. Bed is plastic cant haul much
2. Cheap
3. Truck cant tow much
4. Last 2x longer than disk brakes
5. Why change a design that works