LITTLE ROCK — DEAR TOM AND RAY:
All of the cheapest cars these days seem to have drum brakes on the rear instead of disc brakes. But drum brakes have more parts than disc brakes, and are much harder to assemble (I know from experience). You’d think that would add assembly-line costs and that it would be cheaper to put the better disc brakes on the cheapo econo-cars. What’s up with that, guys? What am I not understanding?
- Barnaby
TOM: The missing element is the parking brake, Barnaby.
RAY: Right. A drum brake also can serve as a parking brake. So you’re essentially getting two for one.
TOM: Disc brakes make lousy parking brakes. So if you put disc brakes on all four wheels, you then have to add two additional, separate drum brakes on the rear wheels to serve as parking brakes.
RAY: Or you have to add a very expensive, and failureprone, component to the rear disc-brake calipers to make them work as parking brakes.
TOM: But drum brakes naturally make good parking brakes because they have a binding, or self-wrapping, action (that’s also what makes them lock up, and makes them less desirable than disc brakes for stopping the car).
RAY:
So if you use drum brakes in the rear to stop the car, you already have your parking brake, and you save money.
DEAR TOM AND RAY:
Could you please settle an ongoing discussion that my family has had for years? On one side is my mother, my six sisters and me (that is not a typo; I really am one of seven girls. The baby is now 19, and we all are licensed drivers). Onthe other side is my father. You would think that after 40 years of being more and more severely outnumbered, he would’ve learned to just nod and go along with what we say like a good boy, but on this one point, he has proved himself to be ridiculously stubborn.
There are very few things my mother, my sisters and I agree on, but one of them is this: None of us likes Dad to drive our car because, in our collective opinion, he is too rough on a car. He waits until the last possible nanosecond to stop at a red light, but pulls away from a green light like the devil himself is on his tail.He weaves in and out of traffic like he’s forever in a hurry. Furthermore, he seems to never hear the little odd noises that any vehicle makes to tell you that something might be amiss, and then wonders why his vehicles are forever breaking down. In fact, he just lost the transmission in his F-150 and swears that it just “went.” But I’d swear that it was making weird grinding noises weeks before he had to park it permanently in the driveway.
Here’s the kicker: My father swears that the way one drives has no bearing whatsoever on how long a car lasts. We, the Female Collective, not only think he’s dead wrong, we think he’s nuts. Could you please impress upon my father that he kills cars with the way he drives and that we arejustified in being reluctant to let him borrow ours when he, yet again, runs whatever he’s driving into the ground?
- Rachel
TOM: Well, of course you and your mother and sisters are absolutely right, Rachel. You’re right on all counts. And he’s wrong on all counts. He’s driving the cars hard, and they’re breaking down because of it. But I would just forget about it and pretend you never wrote to us.
RAY: Me, too. What you’re failing to see is that driving like a nut is your Dad’s only outlet. And if you deny him that important escape valve, it might be he who blows the next gasket rather than his Ford F-150.
TOM: This is his way of dealing with 40 years of having to wait hours for the bathroom, of coming home to a house that smells like the ladies’ department at Macy’s, of having to live among interior walls painted colors he has never even heard of, and of havingto spend his evenings watching TiVo’d episodes of The View. This guy has a stressful life, Rachel!
RAY:
His car is the only place where the poor guy has any autonomy. And now you want to bully him out of that, too?
TOM:
I wouldn’t do it, Rachel. It’s clear that you love your dad. We can tell from your letter. And it’s clear that - having given in to the sisterhood on everything else - he loves you, too. So I say, let the poor guy run his cars into the ground in peace.
Click & Clack (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) dispense advice about cars in Car Talk every Saturday. Email Click & Clack by visiting the Car Talk section of
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HomeStyle, Pages 33 on 07/24/2010