I've always heard that most of your braking is provided by the front wheels. Is there some generally accepted figure for this? I realize there are plenty of variables ...
Most braking done by the front wheels?
- Thread starter nomas
- Start date
Kestas
Staff member
I remember for my 85 Dodge Omni the published value was 80% of the braking was done by the front brakes.
It's true more braking capability is available for the front wheels but It depends on the degree of weight transfer so the figure will vary quite a bit depending on how hard the brakes are applied.
Was true back in the day but with modern stability control and ABS systems the rears do a lot of the heavy lifting. I want to say pretty much every car I have purchased in the last 15 years or so (about 5-6 including my wife) the rear pads wear before the fronts or at least the same. I just did the rears on her Forester at 55k, they had maybe 10-15% left and the front still has about half.
Generally speaking, the preponderance of braking effort is carried by the fronts; however, I've experienced some big differences on cars with 4-wheel disc brakes. When I did the initial brake job on my 2014 Town & Country (roughly 90K miles), the rear pads were down to about 10% while the fronts were well over 80%. At 130K today, the OE front pads are still in place and only the rears have been changed.
Almost the same story for my 2008 Charger (bought new). I finally changed the rear pads this past spring with 44K miles, while the OE front pads soldier on.
I'm sure a lot of this is also due to the fact both vehicles have large HD brakes with front rotors the size of trash can lids.
Almost the same story for my 2008 Charger (bought new). I finally changed the rear pads this past spring with 44K miles, while the OE front pads soldier on.
I'm sure a lot of this is also due to the fact both vehicles have large HD brakes with front rotors the size of trash can lids.
Same thing with my DD '86 Daytona. Over the past decade I've done the fronts twice and only changed the rear shoes and hardware due to age and personal boredom when changing a leaky wheel cylinder. Sometimes I think the rear setup is only there for the parking brake.
Yes, and I'd say this is why front brakes are always larger.
You do not want rears to lock before fronts, esp in slick conditions. This is a great way to lose complete control in a hurry. It would seem ABS can mitigate this by still biasing to the rear but avoiding lockup (I agree most modern vehicles wear rear brakes 2:1 over front)
You do not want rears to lock before fronts, esp in slick conditions. This is a great way to lose complete control in a hurry. It would seem ABS can mitigate this by still biasing to the rear but avoiding lockup (I agree most modern vehicles wear rear brakes 2:1 over front)
Elkins45
Site Donor 2026
My rears wore out on my Mada6 before the fronts. It was the first vehicle I owned where that happened, and it is also the first one I owned with stability control.
Elkins45
Site Donor 2026
My 2007 Corolla was still on the original rear shoes when I sold it at 180k miles. Every year or so I would pop off the rear drums and look at the shoes, then just put the drum back on. I sold it with the set of replacement shoes I bought but never installed.
The fullsize Transit vans have HEAVY rear bias over the fronts-I’ve gone through 2 sets of rear pads before the fronts wore out. Guessing Ford assumed a lot of weight over the rear? Many years ago, when I was young, the company I worked for had overloaded S-10s as service vehicles, with basically useless rear drum brakes… Talk about a handful in a snow or ice storm!!
My ‘07 Corolla needed rear shoes because the brake shoe linings were falling off due to rust! What was left wasn’t worn much!
In a maximum stop, the fronts do 80-90% but I guess with electronic brake distribution the rears could be setup to do more?
Rear pads do seem to wear faster than fronts for some reason in these cars with ABS, Stability control?
Many years ago, I came back from university to visit my parents on Christmas and found my Mom's car had no rear brakes at all? I was just doing a bit of left foot braking in the corners to do some drifting, and there was nothing from the rear brakes, and pulling the parking brakes did nothing as well. It was a smaller fwd car with snow tires so she never noticed anything weird. All cars are setup to lock the front brakes first anyways, and she could drive for years between panic stops.
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That's the reason front rotors and pads are larger. During hard braking vehicle weight shifts to the front so rear tires lose effective traction anyway. This effect is more evident with vehicles with high center of gravity (taller ones). Also, that's why you can see motorcyclists can do 'wheelies' where they lift rear tire off ground completely with hard braking.
It depends on the rate of braking and the height of the center of mass because that determines weight transfer.
If you have a low CoM and moderate braking rate, braking is almost perfectly even across all 4 wheels.
But if you are braking harder in a vehicle with a higher CoM, the braking transfer can be drastic.
How much braking is the rear of this bike doing?
I have similar experience with my Jeep Patriot. The front pads last about twice as long as the rear shoes. I'm not sure if it's front/rear bias or differences in material and caliper vs. drums.
I've seen this on a '19 GMC Canyon, too.
I just did a '19 Rogue with 140,160 miles. I had done the rears a couple years ago, but the original front pads absolutely could have gone longer -- the thinnest was about 4mm. The owner was paranoid and basically insisted on doing the fronts now.
20+ years ago the OEM's discovered that reducing front dive on braking = luxury feel for soft sprung sedans. Then when multi function ABS came popular, then the rear bias for braking became, lets apply the rear brakes to augment the steering wheel, and control handling.
Those rear brakes get far more use now.
Those rear brakes get far more use now.
It's not just that they assume a heavy weight bias to the rear, but they often cheap out on any means of brake bias adjustment.
I remember my old Ram truck had a proportioning valve actuated by a rod physically connected to the suspension. It adjusted based on ride height. COmpletely absurd. But cheap and sort of functional-ish.
The correct way, of course, is to have dynamic proportioning based on ABS speed sensor inputs as well as load cells on the suspension elements to dynamically modulate independent brake pressure based on actual tire load.
Honda (on some Acura models) and Mazda now use rear brakes to help induce yaw and "improve handling."
It's absurd to engineer in features that matter at the 99th percentile.
The ESC system in modern cars also use the rear brakes more than in the past, to help stabilize the chassis and, if RWD to prevent wheel spin.
You guys must be hot-footing it all over town
You guys must be hot-footing it all over town
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