If your wearing out your parking brake shoes you must be using them while driving instead of when parking. This is a crazy design combining rotor/caliper and drum/shoe into one assembly. I figured they could have more easily found a way to actuate the caliper with a cable to do the park function instead of having two completely independant braking systems in the rear and eliminate the need for the drum/shoe thing all together. I've heard the shoes are expensive, but if you don't drive with the parking brake "ON" you shouldn't need to replace them for at least the next MILLION miles. Parking brakes are only used when parking NOT for stopping or for heating up your rotors till they glow red at nite. I did take mine apart so I could adjust them a little because the pedal was going to the floorboard before the brake was fully actuated. Now I have full E STOP at 3/4ths pedal travel. It is a stupid design, but they should last a long time if you don't drive with your emergency brake "ON". As far as the pads in the rear calipers. They should last a long time too since the brake forces are about 80 to 20 front to rear. This mean that you should go thru 4 sets in the front for every one in the rear. If you need to change the rear more frequently than that you have a problem that should be addressed. I have 40k miles and neither the front or rear show much sign of wear, but I don't do a lot of panic stops. I'll probably wear my clutch disc out before my brake pads doing hard starts and down shifting to slow the truck, but I avoid slipping the clutch whenever possible.

 

eallan, did you read any of the posts above, no one here is driving around with their brakes on. aparently it is a faulty design that alows the shoe to ride on the drum even when not in use causing it to wear out. the drives side on my truck is worn to metal, the pasenger side looks like new.

 

eallan as parish said it has nothing to do with the people it is the design. the pad only wears in one place because it shifts and drags.

also what year is your truck if it is a newer one then maby yours does not have this prob.

 

You guys can do like I did when I found out my E-brake shoes were toasted on my '99 Z71....Chunk 'em and don't replace them! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="gr_grin.gif" />