Braking during a hard rain

[HangFire]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
You ever driven a car with 4 wheel drums in the rain?

Only front-heavy vehicles with large, heavy V8 engines and bias ply tires.

 

[bubbatime]

Originally Posted By: Kira

I'd touch the brakes when necessary and feel nothing. Leaning on 'em a bit caused a minor, somehow exaggerated vibration and finally a predictably even braking effect.


Exaggerated vibration from the brake pedal in wet conditions? That is how the antilock brake system works. It pulsates and vibrates when the system is activated.

 

[supton]

My VW started doing that, and eventually I found that the backing plates had rusted holes in them. I didn't bother replacing them--I just remembered that if I drove more than 10 miles in a good rain, then I'd probably not have brakes for 100 yards 50 yards or whatever it was until they dried out. Not sure I've noticed it in any other vehicle, though.

 

[eyeofthetiger]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
You ever driven a car with 4 wheel drums in the rain?


No, but I do intend to get my hands on a VW Beetle someday.

How about a truck with 10 wheel drums in freezing rain? Bonus points for an empty trailer and Chicago traffic.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted By: eyeofthetiger
Originally Posted By: Linctex
Originally Posted By: Wolf359

I just got sick and tired of the brake dust ... No dust now.


You now have ceramic brake pads.
Yes, dust is gone - - but I HATE HATE HATE how "low friction" they are.

Ceramic brake pads last forever, but can be really hard on rotors.

Carbon Metallic brake pads have been my favorites.
I'm not a fan of the new ceramic brake pads at all.


+1

I usually opt for semi-metallic pads over ceramics. The better performance is worth a little dust and noise. I don't mind washing my car once in a while, either.


I did read about that before putting them in, but the stopping power seems to be about the same as before. It probably matters if you're on a track, but it's been fine for regular city driving. If you look at the brochure, I have the 10 spoke rims so brake dust gets in between the spokes and a car wash just takes off the surface dust, it doesn't get at the spokes in between so I had to manually clean the rims off after the car wash. Got to be a pain after a while. Now I take it through the car wash and it comes out clean.

Originally Posted By: bbhero
Wolf359 is big, big money. Only cool cats with cash can have a feature that on their vehicles

Just messing with you Wolf. Hope you've had a good day today.


Yeah, I know, I think it's a bargain. When I got mine, it was under 20k. Now I see them in the 10-12k range. Very fun to drive and it has a lot of cool toys like that which are standard.

 

[fdcg27]

Yeah, you'll notice this when you drive some distance in wet conditions without any brake application.
There will be a momentary and very noticeable lack of braking efficiency, but this quickly goes away.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: Chris142
You ever driven a car with 4 wheel drums in the rain?


Lots of them and yes they can be scary, the worst was a rod operated rear drum only system (no front brakes) with skinny tires. Terrifying wet or dry.

 

[Olas]

Good tyres help, and more importantly looking FAR past the end of the hood eliminates 95% of the need to brake hard.

Where possible changing down a gear or two with appropriate rev matching can improve the braking effect without any more use of the brakes.

 

[MCompact]

Originally Posted By: Olas
Good tyres help, and more importantly looking FAR past the end of the hood eliminates 95% of the need to brake hard.



You are absolutely right; I tell my track day students to assume the bottom half of the windshield is opaque. As you said, the vast majority of hard braking applications are due to the fact that the typical vehicle operator("driver" is far too generous a term) fails to properly observe and anticipate what is going on around his vehicle.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: MCompact
...the vast majority of hard braking applications are due to the fact that the typical vehicle operator("driver" is far too generous a term) fails to properly observe and anticipate what is going on around his vehicle.


Totally agreed. It's far easier to just watch the car in front of you. Then you just auger in with the rest of the lemmings.

Removing the distractions of phones, etc., would also help...

 

[mightymousetech]

Originally Posted By: Olas
Good tyres help, and more importantly looking FAR past the end of the hood eliminates 95% of the need to brake hard.

Where possible changing down a gear or two with appropriate rev matching can improve the braking effect without any more use of the brakes.


Tires, tires, tires!

The brakes don't stop the vehicle, the tires do.

Also, many cars now will automatically engage the brakes slightly every once in a while when the wipers are turned on. Keeps the brakes dry.