I dunno how i noticed this, but it seems most cars on the road today have at most one pair of drum brakes, now i think it would be a good addition to cars like the xrg, xfg, uf1, and at the very most cars like the fxo, but most cars off that size irl have 2 pairs of discs. Just a thought in the way to realism in the land of lfs, just a thought, wanna see what you guys think

Drums are only added to small vehicles for cost reasons. LFS doesn't need to worry about cost (being virtual), and so they are nicely specced out with disc brakes. Who knows if Eric will change this (bearing in mind all cars use the same disc texture at the moment, and one of two caliper texture [called Padsz!]) in the future.

The UF1 should have drums. The XF is the GTi version, which would be with discs. I'd imagine both the XRs would have discs. The FXO is the GTO version, which would have discs in real life...

Blimey, haven't seen drums brakes on a car for yonks, even my diesel 307 has disc's on the back.

Quote from danowat :

Blimey, haven't seen drums brakes on a car for yonks, even my diesel 307 has disc's on the back.

I believe the 206 has drums. And I do know several new cars that don't have disks all the way around. My old little fiesta has discs on the front and drums in the rear though, so the xfg probably should only have disks.
But it does looks weird they're drilled... That looks a bit too high-spec for the car.

Isn't the only difference that they have worse braking performance, so they're often used for rear brakes as a cheapo way for getting a proper brake balance (and also because the rear brakes are less important)?

If anything, simulating drum brakes would have a difference in brake heating and cooling efficiency which isn't simulated yet anyway, so what's the point?

Quote from AndroidXP :

If anything, simulating drum brakes would have a difference in brake heating and cooling efficiency which isn't simulated yet anyway, so what's the point?

Already having them when the heating is coded...

all i know really is changing brake shoes is a pain in the ass, after doing the rear brakes on a corsa(drums) i cut myself several times, hit my fingers and it took over a week to get the grease out from under my fingernails lol

Quote from sgt.flippy :

But it does looks weird they're drilled... That looks a bit too high-spec for the car.

They aren't drilled on the standard texture. You've added that. Remember?

And the XFG = XF GTi. Most GTi cars (by which I mean hothatchs, not Grand Touring Injection, which is a daft title for a hothatch) have discs all round.

Quote from tristancliffe :

They aren't drilled on the standard texture. You've added that. Remember?

And the XFG = XF GTi. Most GTi cars (by which I mean hothatchs, not Grand Touring Injection, which is a daft title for a hothatch) have discs all round.

... I forgot that, but to make sure I searched google on "xfg" and the one picture I looked at had the same texture mod... -_-

Quote from danowat :

Blimey, haven't seen drums brakes on a car for yonks, even my diesel 307 has disc's on the back.

The first gen Focus has them.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Isn't the only difference that they have worse braking performance, so they're often used for rear brakes as a cheapo way for getting a proper brake balance (and also because the rear brakes are less important)?

Supposedly drum brakes are cheaper to produce, though I think a lot of that was down to reduced prices due to demand and the fact they've been made for years, short of material costs I can't see how a drum brake is easier to produce, or in any way better than a disc.

Quote :

If anything, simulating drum brakes would have a difference in brake heating and cooling efficiency which isn't simulated yet anyway, so what's the point?

Generally one probably goes through more brake shoes when driving hard and they aren't as good at staying cool, should also be noted that racing brake shoes, required for hard track/race use are ridiculously expensive and at tracks that are hard on brakes gone after 30 minutes. In fact even the Focus has noticeably less rear end stopping power after a hard road drive.

I could be way off and this has nothing to do with LFS or racing cars, but anyway. I thought that in normal road use discs on the back might go bad somehow because they get used so little and drum brakes are better in that aspect.
Correct me if I am wrong

Quote from ajp71 :

The first gen Focus has them.

Second gen still has them, at least on everything below the 1.8 diesel.
My sister has the sport pack, but only with the 1.6 90hp engine, and she has drums at the back, which looks awful on a sport.

@Geeman: yea, I also remember something about rear drums offer safer conditions for a not so experienced driver. And in traffic, in general, a drum is safer in the wet if I recall correctly.
Just did a search on it. Apparently a lot cars use front discs/rear drums just because it's enough power to stop a car fast enough in today's traffic. And the reason we don't use four discs is because they are indeed more expensive.
And the drums we have today have a better stopping power, than the discs back in the seventies.

Even my moms Kia Picanto 1.0 with 55 hp has disc brakes both front and back.

Quote from Mikkel Petersen :

Even my moms Kia Picanto 1.0 with 55 hp has disc brakes both front and back.

Try looking again, I just searched the specs of the most expensive model Picanto I could find, and that one has vented discs in front and drums in the back.

How are drums safer in the wet? My only guess is that is a misguided statement based on the fact that discs are exposed, and if they're wet may not off as much stopping power when you brake very lightly, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Quote from sgt.flippy :

Try looking again, I just searched the specs of the most expensive model Picanto I could find, and that one has vented discs in front and drums in the back.

Well, gotta take an extra look and I will come back.

Quote from http://www.newkia.co.uk/index.php?include=link& :

Braking system: Disc front and rear with ABS

Quote from ajp71 :

How are drums safer in the wet? My only guess is that is a misguided statement based on the fact that discs are exposed, and if they're wet may not off as much stopping power when you brake very lightly, which you shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Wasn't sure about that statement, thought I heard it somewhere before. But yes, it had to do with when discs are wet, they don't grip instantly because the water has to vaporise off first.
I'll just believe it doesn't matter

Quote from Mikkel Petersen :

Well, gotta take an extra look and I will come back.

Indeed, on that website it has discs all around. Maybe a little difference between the belgian car and the english one?
The website I saw seems to be at fault, it indeed has discs all around. Stupid website

Disc brakes in front of my old '83 Saab were so great that you didn't notice anything even if you forgot to release handbrake...which on Saabs affects front wheels.

Quote from sgt.flippy :

Indeed, on that website it has discs all around. Maybe a little difference between the belgian car and the english one?
The website I saw seems to be at fault, it indeed has discs all around. Stupid website

Well the belgian should indeed be the same as the one you would buy in Denmark.
But I will still go and take a closer look when it's home in the daytime, it's getting dark quite early right now.

Drum brakes would be a BIG mistake in LFS, when they added brake heating, the drums would fade like mad. leaving you with all brake force at the front, thats if the brake fluid doesn't hit boiling point and blow the flex lines. In which case, you'd have no brakes! thats if they add fluid temp.

I just worked on drums this moring, they have to be the worst braking system ever, the wheel pistons always fail and leak all over the shoes, making already horrible braking performance even worse.

Odd - I work with and use drum brakes (often all-round) quite often, and see them as a reliable, safe and effective braking system, that's just a bit heavy and slow to get in to (but easy once you have). The wheel cylinders don't fail that often for me (certainly no more than disc calipers), when they do the shoes nearly always get away with it. And a decent drum brake will put many a modern road disc brake to shame.

It should be noted that LFS doesn't actually simulate disc brakes either, yet. We just get a braking torque to play with, which would be the end result of the brake simulation. The brakes will have to be simulated before brave heating and variable performance can be added. Then the different radius of discs (among other factors) will affects the braking forces even before brake bias is taken into account, so we will start using brake biases of much closer to 50% (assuming the brake bias is a pressure bias).

Ideally we'd be able to set front/rear pad size and pressure bias, with LFS calculating the resulting max brake torque and "real" brake bias for us.

Actualy, 18 wheelers use drums because they are air operated. making disk air brakes would over complicate things.

For normal everyday use, drums are good enough. Any racer with common sence would swap rear drums for disks though, as drums tend to be less reliable when you subject them to alot of load for a long time, they overheat fast.

18 wheelers use alot of engine braking so any argument about them having drums is pointless, since they are used only to bring the vehicle to a stop. Not for slowing down or decending hills, Thats done with the engine.

I think one of the drum's problem is that the braking force saturates, and is not quite linear to the input. It may be due to the "self actuation" (if you read Howstuffworks), so that braking force rises quickly for the first part of pedal pressure but rises slowly after. Disc brakes (fluid+piston) has no such non-linearity, only deviating from true linear response due to the load sensitivity in the pad+disc.