Why do I need rear disks?

atrixblue.-MFR-.

drum brakes used over long driving periods can be a pain in the backside, not to mention they can catch fire if ever pushed over the limit. busses have j brake, so do hgvs etc for decending, without out that J brake there would certainly be a few fires with the weight of these HGV's

mcfisco

As mentioned, it's to allow ABS to function adequately

I used to race motorcycles and never used the rear brake at all for slowing down
I used to use it a a means of traction control, as soon as the throttle went on, the back brake was used to keep the spinning of the rear wheel under control

vikingaero

Rear discs are fitted to cars with higher performance variants of a model range. For instance all 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4 Corsas have rear drums. The 1.6 Turbo and 1.7 diesels have rear discs. Once you go above general shopping trolley cars, drums are generally not fitted.

cardinalbiggles

mcfisco wrote: »

As mentioned, it's to allow ABS to function adequately

ABS functions adequately with front disks only.

Lum

Rear drums are there so that when the car ends up getting modified to look like a child's drawing of a race car, you can just look at the rear wheels and see that it's really a 1.0 shopping trolley underneath all the fibreglass tat.


More pictures of that car on BarryBoys, if anyone fancies a giggle.

Road_Hog

avantra wrote: »

Helping another mate find a car and he commented that many of the cars small or large from the last 6 -7 years got brake disks all round, and it made me wonder why?

Disc brakes are better (better braking and more efficient). Drum brakes are less effective but used to be cheaper. Now discs are cheaper and easier to work on/replace, they have become the defacto standard.

cardinalbiggles

Road_Hog wrote: »

Disc brakes are better (better braking and more efficient). Drum brakes are less effective but used to be cheaper. Now discs are cheaper and easier to work on/replace, they have become the defacto standard.

Not really there are still loads of new cars with rear drums.

poppasmurf_bewdley

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Not really there are still loads of new cars with rear drums.

But as new models appear, they generally now have rear disc brakes, not drums.