what is this magick... light car is light.
a picture is worth a thousand words... so.. 4 thousand words?

another ~5k miles another oil change...

this percentage means nothing...


Pictured below, carquest new shoes v.s. 111k mile oem still installed...

 

Have they ever been replaced? Are they properly adjusted?

 

Never replaced. Adjusted from the dealership. They are functioning as brakes, if that's what you're asking. It's worth mentioning that much of this is highway mileage, and I'm nit a bumper-jockey in traffic, so the brakes aren't over used. For perspective, the front pads lasted around 90k miles before needing replacement.

 

I've thought for a while that Honda designed in way more front brake bias than the car's weight distribution really needs, specifically because having to replace drums/shoes would remind users that they don't have rear discs. Your average Fit driver isn't going to push the car very hard, so they might not ever notice.

My shoes looked about the same, and the piston in the drum setup is tiny. I don't really have anything to compare it to, though- never had to deal with drums before, maybe that's an appropriate size.

 

That just shows how maintenance free solution drum brakes in rear are. Rear brakes have so little load, that disc breaks require much more service, especially in wet winter conditions. I wish we had those rear drums in European models too.

 

You could get disc brakes to have a similar service interval if the piston size was so small they didn't really have any braking power. Put them on the front and you wouldn't need to service brakes for the lifetime of the car! Which, granted, might be shortened dramatically by a tree or something.

Joking aside, I'm saying the rear drums aren't needing servicing because they aren't doing anything. If Honda designed a larger piston (not sure if there's a drum specific term here) or a master cylinder with more rearward bias, then the drums would wear out faster and the car would likely stop better. Some of the lack of load on the rears is because of weight transfer, exaggerated by the soft stock suspension, but my belief is that they went way farther than the front bias needed on purpose.

Unfortunately the chances of doing a side by side braking test with a rear disc equipped Fit are close to zero, you'd need the same suspension, wheels, tires, and front brake pad selection to make it meaningful.

 

You are exactly correct.

Many complain at the rear drum setup on vehicle as though it's some antiquated mechanism that's been overshadowed many times over by disk brakes.
When in reality, they are simple, cheap to manufacture and low maintenance.
In 90% of the applications, that's all anyone needs.

 

This makes sense.

It's interesting. Ince that maintanence needs to happen though, I'm going to wish they were disks. The drum mechanism is a pain in the ass that ...i need more practice with unfortunately...

lol'ed

i agree

 

I agree with what's been stated. Even my 2007 Ruckus has Drum Brakes front and back. Stops on a dime.

 

There's a few separate things going on here. Drum brakes can be as powerful or as weak in their clamping force as the designer specifies. Size of the contact surface, size of the piston, master cylinder, etc. Just like disc brakes. You can spec one tiny piston in a caliper with a small diameter disc, or you can spec six piston calipers with two large discs per wheel as on some bikes. The main difference is in heat dissipation, which honestly doesn't matter for most of us, including me. As much as my internal monologue wishes it was the second coming of Ayrton Senna, I don't overheat my brakes even on twisty roads.

A Ruckus is light, so there's not that much energy to bleed off into heat when you stop, and while you could probably overheat the brakes if you tried to race it, the designers know it's not likely to be raced, and therefore not likely to need more cooling than drums allow. But knowing they have drums front and rear, they spec a drum setup that's powerful enough to do a decent job braking.

Bikes are kind of an odd case for brake bias, because a combination of wheelbase, high center of gravity, and inherent dive in the front suspension layout cause even more dramatic weight transfer than we get in the Fit. There's plenty of photos showing bike racers lifting the rear tire barely off the track, and not for stunt riding purposes either- but there were some experimental racing bikes with double wishbone front ends in the 80s, allowing for anti-dive geometry and supposedly some dramatic improvements in braking stability.

https://www.motorsportretro.com/2009...imental-bikes/




Even though I converted my car to rear discs, I don't think the discs are inherently superior for what I'm doing. Rather, I wish Honda had specified more rearward brake bias for the drums. If they're barely worn in the same interval you can wear out the fronts two or three times, they're not doing much to stop the car. That wouldn't even cause a significant increase in the manufacturing cost, just a different piston diameter.

 

It's a bit odd that Honda equipped the Big Ruckus with rear Drum and front Disc brakes.

 

I'm at 92k and still running the original brakes. The last time I rotated my tires the pads head a ton of material still on them. I was averaging about 20k a year commuting, then the pandemic happened and I've been into the office 4 times, the rest working from home. I have moved into the city though so I'm doing a lot more stop and go these days, but only to run errands.

 

all the weight transfers to the front when you stop ...drums or possibly ANYTHING ....in the rear should last longer than front

 

Not necessarily, depends on the vehicle.
I know on my e30 it's designed with a rear brake bias, so the rears wear slightly faster than the fronts.
It results in much less "nosedive" under hard braking.