Ever wonder how your car brakes work? If you are a type of dude that just know how to drive, then you better start learning more knowledge about your car as your life may one day depend on it.
Yes, the brake system of your vehicle is one of the most important (if not the most important) components of automobiles and like other systems such as the air intake, cooling system and AC system, car brakes has also evolved.
And not knowing how your brakes work or how to maintain it may mean life or death as brakes are responsible for stopping the car. Failure to do so will lead to accidents.
So in this post, I will help educate you about your car’s brake system, specifically the disc and drum brakes. Read on!
Disc Brakes
You will most likely see disc brakes in modern cars today, especially those high performance rally cars and super cars. These brakes are awesome piece of engineering and is available in 1 up to even 8 piston calipers sets.
Old cars such as those pre-70’s automobiles don’t have disc brakes yet but only drum brakes in both front and rear wheels.
Disc brakes are called “disc” because it uses a flat, disk-shaped metal called “rotor” that spins with the wheel.
When the brakes are applied, a caliper clamps the brake pads or lining against the rotor which helps slow or stop the vehicle from motion.
The braking power of disc brakes comes from how big the rotor and the caliper is. The more piston a caliper have, the more braking power it can provide.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Disc Brakes
There are several advantages of using disc brakes in cars. First, rotors expand when it gets hot. This keeps the rotor near the pads, which gives the driver less effort in depressing the brake pedal to get good braking.
Disc brakes are generally more efficient than drum brakes, easily to maintain and set up. If you are driving through water, it won’t affect the discs as much as drum brakes would, so you get your stopping power back quickly.
There are some disadvantages for this disc brakes of course. One of the obvious disadvantages is its high maintenance cost compared to drum brakes.
And when your disc brakes starts to fail, you better ready your hard cash to get some of its components replaced.
Another big issue with disc brakes are brake noise. There are several reasons why disc brakes produce annoying noises such as lack of grease, brake hardware issue, damage rotor, uneven brake pad wear and many others.
And for those cars equipped with four-wheel disc brakes, there is a common issue with regards to using disc brakes as a parking brake. When the pads clamp on the rotor for a longer period of time, they often get stuck and damages the rotor.
So disc brakes is not that efficient in keeping your car stationary while parked. Now lets turn our attention to drum brakes.
Drum Brakes
While drums are not that amusing to look at, it is quite as efficient as the disc brakes when it comes to braking power (maybe even more efficient than discs).
Older vehicles of the past decades uses drum brakes in both front and rear wheels, so this just means that drums are also a reliable braking system.
It is called “drum” because it’s braking component inside is drum-shaped – with two large curved brake pads on each side that push outwards the drum housing, the friction helps slow the car down.
Disc brakes aren’t a complicated piece of hardware, where you can even memorize all of its components in just a minute or two. But judging from the looks of drum brakes below, you will certainly get confused which part is the most critical and which one is not.
So most DIY enthusiasts don’t want to mess with their drum brakes because they are afraid that they can’t put everything back together in case they want to replace a component.
But don’t be mistaken, drum brakes are quite a reliable brake system and is simple to understand.
Why are Drum Brakes Still Used Today?
But even with the emergence of the new and more advanced disc-based caliper brakes, drum brakes are not even near on becoming extinct anytime soon.
Why?
Well first is with regards to cost. Car manufacturers simply cut the overall cost of their vehicle line up to help entice customers to buy new cars. This is the reason why disc brake vehicles costs more compared to those cars with rear drum brakes.
Another reason is the braking capacity of hand brakes (parking brakes).
As mentioned above, disc brakes are not good at keeping the car stationary when parked using the hand brake. So the most economical way to get around this issue is to put drum brakes at the rear wheels.
But engineers have a clever way of using both drum and disc brakes at the rear wheels. Some cars (mostly trucks and SUVs) comes with a small drum brake to the rear brakes which are responsible only for hand braking, while also having rear discs for conventional braking.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Drum Brakes
As mentioned above, drum brakes gives efficient braking power, even greater than those with equal diameter disc brake.
Drum brake pads (shoe) lasts longer due to its larger friction contact area compared to a disc. This is the reason why most car owners have replaced their front disc pads twice or three times, and their stock brake shoe is still usable.
Unlike disc brakes, drum brakes generate less heat. With regards to cost, drums are far cheaper than disc brakes. Overall, drum brakes have less maintenance compared to disc brakes.
On the other hand, there are also a handful of disadvantages for drum brake system.
Excessive or hard braking can cause the drum to heat up fast. This lead to vibration or noise when braking. Also, the diameter of the drum increases due to high heat thermal expansion. This means that the driver must depress the pedal deeper than usual.
Though the cost and maintenance of drum brakes are low, repairing a drum takes more time compared to disc brakes.
Another common issue with drum is water accumulation inside. If you drive in a muddy, flood or rainy weather, drums collect water on the inside surface, making contact to brake components especially the brake shoe.
Conclusion
Whatever type of brakes your car have, it will surely function well without any issues IF you know basic maintenance jobs like brake fluid bleeding and flush.
So better start learning more about your car’s components and have less headaches due to repair in the future. In today’s day and age, all information can be found online. So I suggest you start reading and learning on how to properly maintain your car yourself!
