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Brake Types

[Catalog:News] [Date:2019-9-27] [Hits:] [Return]

Brake Types

Generally brakes will need to be replaced throughout the lifetime of your car. There are two different kinds of brakes used for cars, drum brakes and disc brakes.
Traditionally, the front brakes are disc brakes and the rear brakes are drum brakes. The rear brake is also used for the handbrake.

More and more models use disc brakes for both front and rear, where the rear brakes can be either disc or drum.
The front are disc brakes as they are most effective, when braking heavily the front brakes will take 60% of the impact, which means they need to be stronger than rear brakes. Disc brakes work when the calliper clamps the brake pads onto the brake disc, slowing the vehicle down.

As brakes are by far the most important safety feature of your car, we recommend that a professional mechanic performs any checks and repairs.

When it is time to change your brakes, it is common to change the brake drums/discs as well as the pads. The drum brake consists of a metal drum, a leading shoe and a trailing shoe whereas disc brakes contain a brake disc and two pads positioned either side within the brake calliper. When using brake drums, the shoes get pushed onto the inner surface of the drum, which then causes friction and stops the wheels from turning. They are not quite as effective as disc brakes, which gets pressure from both sides, where the drum brake only get pressure on the inside.

Slowing down generates heat, and as it is inside the drum where the brake shoes operate, there will often be grooves for ventilation. At the same time, brake dust is released which has to be removed from time to time and may cause the drum brake to become defective. Therefore, regular servicing of the brakes is very important.

The brakes are designed to assist the driver to slow down, so there should be no need to press so hard on the brake pedal. Petrol cars use the vacuum servo in the intake manifold, while the diesel engines often use electric brake booster. You should be aware that the brake servo/booster does not work when the engine is off. It is rarely necessary to change the brake servo, but when it happens, you can get three quotes from local garages with Autobutler.