I agree, my 95 Z71 with the Disc/Drum setup was HORRIBLE. The drums ALWAYS needed to be adusted, stopping was ALWAYS front nose dive with NO stopping from the rear. Sorry, but NO WAY can you tell me drums stop better than a disc, if that is the case, why not go back to drums all the way around? Regrdless of how much stopping is done by the rear, drums s*** and that is all there is to it. There are NO drum brakes on ANY race car of ANY sort that I know of....NHRA, NASCAR, INDY, AUTOCROSS, etc...Sure some of the old school Stock Elimator runs drums because they can adjust the drums for no drag going the track, but that is it. My old race car had a disc/drum setup, with power, and when I converted to manual, WHOA!!! Almost made the sand traps, put disc on the rear, and that was the ONLY change I made, and the car stopped better than ever! Sorry, no votes for drums from me, and my 05 has em,

 

I thought they changed back for "pedal feel" Seems alot of people complained that they felt mushy as AKZ71 mentioned. Disc are always better unless it is for the masses, then "feel" becomes important.

 

There are no drums on race cars, because drums among other short comings, are terrible in dealing with heat.

In terms of a passenger vehicle, drums are cheaper to produce and work as intended. Yes the '05 guys are getting shafted in an extent for GM to save some money, but in reality, we are all just asking for more by paying less. Perhaps should have made rear discs an option?

 

An option would have been great. I know drums can not deal with heat, among other things. But look at it this way. These trucks are meant to haul loads, and coming from a stop from 60 MPH + with a couple thousand pounds or more behind me, it would be nice to know that I have the best brakes available on my truck I just paid 25K+ for, instead having a manufacturer going BACK in time, and put an inferior product such as drum brakes on my vehicle for them to save a few bucks. Don't you think that 60 MPH + stop with a load is going to build some heat???????

 

No, I would have put on more heavy duty front pads, made sure the trailer brakes if so equipped were up to snuff, and left it at that. I may even add a brake bias adjuster.

I for one am not as smart as a GM engineer, if they think that it can do what it's rated for (with margin for error of course), I'm not going to complain.

I really think that while it would have been nice to have discs. However, past problems and costs with the rear brakes have made them re-evaluate things and have went back to drum technology that BTW has gotten better in the last decade or so with better pad compounds, and advances in metallugry, etc.

 

Man, I still have my original pads all the way around with over 100k on them. They still look great to.

 

Greggo, your roads are a lot nicer than ours here. Dust and dirt make life of rear rotors and pads short. I hated getting a rock stuck between pad and rotor. Squealed a lot and had to dislodge it by stomping on the brake pedal.

 

So, go out and change my pads on my 7k mile truck because the factory could not give me the right stuff to begin with for $25K? Yeah, trailer brakes are fine and dandy IF the trailer you have is equipped. So, in retrospect, I need to go and change pads on my new $25K truck, and make sure the trailer I buy or borrow is equipped with trailer brakes before I go haul, OR, GM could have KEPT disc brakes on the truck and figured why they were having problems with them to begin with. Sorry, but the 4 wheel disc's on my 03 Ford F350 CC LB DRW Powerstroke had 70K miles on it, of which the majority of it was hauling heavy loads, and that truck weighs @ 1 1/2 times this truck (8200LBS on a truck scale, empty), would stop ALOT better than my Silverado. I love my truck, but disc's are FAR superior than drums ever will be, and if that was NOT the case, why is it MORE rare to see drums than disc out back, as opposed to a few years back ,when it was MORE rare to see discs in the rear? Because disc are better, plain and simple, and I do not have to be an engineer to figure that one out.

 

I'm not here to argue about which is better, that has already been established and agreed upon. Drums work plain and simple. Could they have gone the extra mile? Yes, but GM is looking at ways to cut costs and this is one way to do it.

Settle down.

 

I like my disc brakes on my truck and the pads seem to last forever.

That said GM gave the '05's bigger front disc brakes and the drums in the rear since the rear doesn't do much of the braking. They saved money out back to give us better hardware up front. Have you ever pulled the emergency brake while coasting along. The rears only do a small portion of the braking for a reason.

From their testing the newer disc/drum setup stops much better than the 4 disc setup. I see no reason to not believe this since the fronts are larger. As far as longevity that remains to be seen. I think changing over to drums in the back may have had something to do with the crappy e-brake setup that decided to eat rotors on some trucks also.

Maybe we should give it a chance before condemning the drums on the rear. I mean we still have an ancient pushrod engine too.