Rear Drum Brakes

[brsexton]

Ok so my car has 30k on it. So I decided I would take it to the dealer for a few maintenance items and a state inspection. I ask them to adjust my rear brakes and parking brake because it felt as if it was not holding as well. I got my car back this evening and the brakes feel WAY better. I don't know why, but my car stops much better then it did. The brake pedal don't go as far down. Plus the parking brake now works GOOD with 4 clicks. Before, I would pull it as far as I could and I could still back out of the driveway. I don't know how my brakes could have gotten out of adjustment that bad in 30k, but I am very happy I had them checked. I think they must have not been adjust even when the car was new. They brakes work better now then they ever have. I also hope this takes some heat off my front because I just replaced those and the rotors 3500 miles ago.

[Vtolds]

Adjusting the parking brake is really easy there is just a couple of tensioners to adjust to tighten the lines you could have done it yourself most likely.

[FormulaNERD]

actually the parking brake in the alero is self adjusting, and the small pads for it were probably replaced.

[brsexton]

Well they are self adjusting if you have disk brakes on the rear. The drum brakes are said they self adjust, but they guy at the dealer said they don't do their job. He said every 15k the drums should be removed and the brakes sould be cleaned and adjusted.

[Vtolds]

Actaully I beleive the Alero, I may be wrong but dont they have drum/rotor brakes in the back. The rotor has a big center to fit the shoes in for the parking brake and the pads are for the regular brakes?

[brsexton]

The 99-2002 Alero's all have rear disk. Starting in 03 rear disk was an option. My was not ordered with rear disk. It has drums.

[FormulaNERD]

well the rear disc is ALSO a drum (housing the pads for the handbrake in a drum style) so you're both right, but i think this is what VTOLDS was trying to say.

[brsexton]

Originally posted by FormulaNERD@Nov 11 2004, 12:21 PM
well the rear disc is ALSO a drum (housing the pads for the handbrake in a drum style) so you're both right, but i think this is what VTOLDS was trying to say.

I see....

[FormulaNERD]

the poopty thing is that the inside of the rotor that houses the handbrake pads will actually wear out before the pads will. THATS when the self adjusting no longer works, and you can have the cable pulled even tighter, but the proper fix is to replace the rear rotors.

[brsexton]

I just know that I have had drum brakes on all of my cars. But this is the first where I can tell a huge difference in the braking performace after they were adjusted. Thats what makes me think they were out of adjustment when I bought the car new...

[Vtolds]

well the rear disc is ALSO a drum (housing the pads for the handbrake in a drum style) so you're both right, but i think this is what VTOLDS was trying to say.

That is exactly what I was trying to say.