I agree, around here most of those roadside memorials are gaudy. Sadly on Fathers day morning a young man who was the father of two children with a third on the way decided to drive drunk and he hit a big concrete post and was killed upon impact. It took all of a day for the family and friends to start piling an enormous amount of stuff at the site. The most ironic thing that was placed at the site at some point early on was an empty beer bottle among all of the teddy bears, swag and other non sense.
It is still there and I believe it was put there by friends or family to give the poor fella one last beer. Instead of trying to use the death of their loved one as an opportunity to attempt to educate people about the deadly consequences of impaired driving, they completely missed the point and decided to celebrate the very aspect of the young mans life that led to his death.
Such ignorance is what makes drunken driving a perennial problem.
New braking technology is already being designed. Theyâre called âregenerative brakesâ and rather than convert all of the inertial energy into heat energy, they convert some of it into electrical energy and store it in battery arrays. These I expect to evolve quickly with the advent of all electric vehicles. New battery array technologies will probably be able to store energy more densely, allowing the braking system to convert more of the inertial energy to electrical energy for storage.
Disc brakes themselves are evolving, using different pad materials, bigger discs (hence the larger wheels on newer cars), bigger pads, ABS, and integrated stability control systems (Iâll avoid the debate on how good or bad these are). Discs started out as a single two-sided disc, now most have two discs separated by vanes to better dissipate heat. High performance cars even use exotic materials for the discs, which may someday become offered on daily drivers as the entire combination of evolving technologies merges and if the cost of these exotic discs drops.
Disc brake technology has advanced so far beyond the possibilities of even the best, most heat dissipating drum brakes that thereâs no comparison whatsoever. Itâs simply a far, far better technology than drum brake could ever become.
I still say at the end of the day drums are more efficient. I actually wrote an email to Toyota stating that the main reason prius owners need brakes is not due to wear, but rust. I feel that my old prius V should have had 4 wheel drums. The regenerative braking system did most of the work, the brakes rarely ever got hot as I would sometimes jump out and check them with my thermal IR gun after a 60mph stop.
The main problem with drums is sometime when excessive braking is occurring, you have heat buildup that cannot be dissipated as well as a disc brake, so you have fade, with a prius heat buildup should not be an issue and the discs on mine were already getting really rusty because they would never reach their self cleaning temperature.
I had to start occasionally putting the car into neutral when braking for a highway exit or traffic signal when it was safe to do so because then all of the braking was done by the hydraulic disc brakes because in neutral you have no regenerative braking.
At the end of the day Toyota never responded and I suppose even if they did put 4 wheel drums on the car they would be ridiculed and some people would not buy the car because it had drum brakes.
There is no law requiring disc brakes up front is there? I know there are guidelines regarding stopping distances for new cars, but these could easily be met by drums.
Um⊠actually the posts I make seem to get a lot of traffic which in turn equals $$ for cartalk.com. Because some of my ideas may be controversial, they do serve as a catalyst for some great discussion and allows the free flow of ideas, theories, and helps us better understand our vehicles.
If traffic is dropping because of me it probably has less to do with drum brakes and more to do with my outspoken opinion about drunk drivers. Drunk driving is so en grained in the American culture most have done it I believe, now it may not have been getting behind the wheel falling down drunk im talking .08 or higher drunk. Most countryâs take drunk driving seriously and have stricter limits and laws than we do. We practically have drunk driving holidays for crying out loud,
By calling drivers out on it tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable because the majority of drivers seem to have driven when they shouldnât have at some point in their driving years.
The reason the traffic is dropping probably has something to do with the fact Cartalk is no longer producing new shows, the listener base is shrinking, in fact some NPR stations have taken cartalk off the air completely. I love cartalk, still listen as I have for 25 years, but the show is over. Its sad, but true.
Most people are not going to come here to try to diagnose their own vehicles anymore. DIY mechanic work is decreasing rapidly, many people can no longer or simply are not willing to change a flat tire anymore let alone change oil or what not.
That is why I say we need an off topic board here. It just may help the website survive.
P.S. I often start various Monologues, rants and Diatribes at work about different issues. People have come to learn that even if we donât agree it doesnât mean we cant like each other. I donât dislike someone because they do something I disagree with. If that something puts other people at risk I have a problem with it and I pray those folks donât hurt anyone, some people are going to do what they are going to do and nothing said will change that. Its possible when they get a DUI and lose their job maybe then they will realize their behavior is irresponsible.
Ok, I admit that drum brakes are not a likely solution to brake dust pollution, However in the original post I asked what some other likely solutions were?
I am a layman and have no idea of any possible substitutes for braking material that would provide equivalent performance to what we currently use.
Let us remember, when asbestos was no longer allowed in brake linings many of the old timers grumbled and said it was non sense. Do not think copper pollution is not an issue, it is. Is it the biggest issue? No not even close. But donât think we can keep polluting our waterways for ever.
Iâm beginning to think youâre turning into a troll
I donât recall ANYBODY else who writes a letter to a car manufacturer asking them to equip their current model cars with drums all around
And I also donât know ANYBODY else who runs out of their car after a hard stop, to measure the temperature of the brakes, using the infrared thermometer. Anybody driving by must think you need to get back on your medication
With all due respect, you need to accept that no manufacturer is going to revert BACK to drums on the front brakes
Even the regular Priuses . . . Iâm NOT talking about the V, because I donât know much about it . . . have discs all around
Thatâs right, Rick
So thereâs about a snowballâs chance in hell Toyotaâs going to do an about-face and go back to drums all around
Rick, you mentioned that youâre a layman.
No disrespect intended, but many of us here are long-time engineers, mechanics, chemists, and trained and experienced in other science disciplines. You may want to take the approach of learning from us⊠and from every manufacturer in the world who all have switched to disc brakes, many on both ends of the car.
The âmain problemâ that you mentioned is a pretty critical problem. Add to that the fact that drums retain water, and after driving through a puddle it was very common in the old days to lose oneâs brakes. âRiding the brakesâ to dry them out was something we all had to do.
I give you credit for not compromising your beliefs. However, in order to grow we also need to learn from those more knowledgeable. I will always fight for your right to believe that drum brakes are better. But the entire world disagrees that they are.
Iâm sure a replacement for copper can be found, still, Iâll bet that a lot of the copper found in lakes comes from anti-fouling paint on the bottoms of large sailboats and other boats that are stored in wet slips.
I remember when disks started replacing drum brakes on the front wheels of motorcycles. A lot of the old timers swore they would never ride a bike with a powerful disk brake on the front, way too dangerous, lock up the front wheel with the touch of the lever. I found the opposite to be true and the first disk brake bike I owned was amazing. Yes, the brake was powerful, but it was powerful without being grabby. You could easily control the exact braking force you wanted, not like the nothingâŠlittleâŠlittle moreâŠLOCKED braking characteristics of a typical drum brake.
I attribute this mostly to not relying on self actuation for a large percentage of the shoe force on the drum.
To get this braking force, a disk brake needs a lot of hydraulic force multiplication, but because of the the inherent rigidness of the calipers and the non-compressible nature of the disk, you can actually achieve this force multiplication without having a ridiculously spongy brake lever.
What is this âefficiencyâ nonsense you speak of? ALL brakes convert 778 ft-lb of energy into one BTU of heat with 100% efficiency.
I began driving in the drum brake era on cars that did not have power assisted brakes. The power assisted drum brakes were really touchy. I hated to drive a car with power drum brakes. I donât know if there were any vehicles made that had non-power assisted disk brakes, but power assisted disk brakes are easy to control and stop a vehicle better than drum brakes.
I didnât actually specify drums, I told Toyota that I was having a problem with the rear brake rotors rusting and not getting cleaned in my type of driving. There were weeks that probably went by with the hydraulic brakes doing almost no stopping duty thanks to the regenerative braking. The dealer noted the rotors getting rusty during a service and they were starting to get a hair noisy.
This was not just cosmetic rust, braking events were cleaning off some of the rust but some pitting was starting, mostly on the rear brakes.
I wrote Toyota in the form of a complaint and told them about the rear brake issues on many priuses due to the fact the rears simply donât do much of anything. I was trying to have the rotors warrantied but of course thatâs a wear item. There is no reason a prius should have rear disc brakes, or if they do I guess plan on replacing them every 4 years even though the pads have 7/8 left on them because the brake rotors are destroyed. Come to salt country, it sucks.
I told Toyota they need to look at remedying the issue and suggested that maybe the car should have had rear drum brakes, and while I was at it the fronts were starting to exhibit similar issues so I told them why not use 4 wheel drums. I was stating to them there was a design defect and it should be fixed, either with existing, proven technology, or new tech.
This was not a troll issue, it was a $$$ issue. In the end its a lease car and it didnât matter, but I didnât want to be stuck with a 4 wheel brake job on a 3 year old car with 30k miles on it come turn in time. I supplied Toyota with the VIN number, and my issue and they gave me some generic âbrakes are wear itemsâ response. Which I agree with, but I feel there is a better setup for brakes on a prius.
On the car I am driving now i was having the same issues on the rear disc brakes, but luckily the rear parking brake activates the calipers, so I have been driving on cable brakes some days to get the rears hot enough to self clean.
May be, but I have found The IR gun useful in diagnosing sticking brake calipers (in my case the pads were binding). Its not like I did this in traffic, there is a lonely interstate exit by my house and I have checked the brake temps on the off ramp, I can do a 60mph braking stop turning into my driveway if I chose and have checked them once I pull in. They may think I look crazy, I think I look Classy but then again thatâs only if you ask me ('Lil rob reference there lolâŠ)
At one point I was trying to determine if the rear brakes on the prius were doing anything at all, they were, but with the Regen braking the rear brakes get almost zero use if you drive like I do.
The V is basically just a Prius station wagon. Great car, in fact the best car I have ever had, Also the unluckiest. In a different time and a different place I would consider one again. I just couldnât justify the cost for a vehicle that sat a lot just for the idiot rednecks to take swings at it in the home depot parking lot .
Most motorcycles have stainless steel disk brake rotors, seems to me to be a better solution to the rust problem than going back to drums, which also can rust.
I too use an IR thermometer to check for a sticking caliper when in doubt. Itâs the best place to start.
I also support your right to complain to the manufacturer. Even if its only result is blowing off a bit of frustration. I would not want to live in a country where you couldnât do that.
SS discs are a good idea, but the expense could not be justified for mass manufacturing. The vast majority of buyers donât struggle with the problems inherent in cars that get little use or are exposed to extreme conditions. However, you should also know that drums are made of the same material as discs, and shoes have been known to stick to drums. People who have left their cars with the parking brake on for extended times in regions where rust is an issue will often find their wheels stuck.
I firmly disagree with the argument that drums are better. But you seen to me to be a decent sort who simply has developed strong beliefs that defy the general consensus. I support your right to express them.
The reason motorcycles have stainless steel disks is mostly cosmetic. Unlike a car, motorcycle disks are right there in the open for everyone to see and even a light coating of rust is unsightly.
Itâs also why motorcycle disks have all sorts of weird hole and wave patterns, which allegedly have âadvantagesâ, however I feel itâs mostly to make the bike look âtricked outâ, you know, like yellow spark plug wires and color anodizing of aluminum parts.
B.L.E., I suspect youâre right. On all points.
Like the front and rear spoilers I put on my Vega back in '72. Strictly for looks. Although I could swear my Vega accelerated faster with the spoilers on.
Oh believe me I know this, Part of the draw for me to this site is the fact that I can interact with people who have such incredible knowledge and have so many fascinating (at least to me) jobs.
I am serious here. My wife asks me why I come on here to âargueâ all the time, i told her I donât feel its arguing, It is a forum that facilitates the free flow of ideas relating to the automobile. You can ask my wife, I am an odd duck with some odd ways of thinking and sometimes I rush to judgement and come to conclusions quickly without thinking logically. I know this, yet I still do it. I forget what the definition of that isâŠ
As the song goes, âthere is no good guy, there is no bad guy, its only you and me and we just disagree, whoa whoa whoaaaaâŠâ
Thats the way I see it.
I have learned many new things here and have enjoyed many interesting stories.
As the song goes, âthere is no good guy, there is no bad guy, its only you and me and we just disagree, whoa whoa whoaaaaâŠâ
LOL, I wholeheartedly agree.
Itâs debating. Arguing involves insults and personal comments. Debating sticks to the subject at hand and debates its setbacks and attributes. People learn from debating. People only get heart attacks from arguing.
