GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

81,000 miles I have never had the rear drums taken care of. Not sure if that is really bad or not cause most of the braking is done up front and the car still feels fine in braking. But I'm gonna have them checked out at my oil change with tire rotation and see whats up. Whats your verdict, will they be shot?

drum brakes last forever. you're probably ready for new shoes, but I bet the drums are fine.

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »Whats your verdict, will they be shot?My guess is that the brake shoes are fine, but you might need to replace them after you put another 80K miles on.

Dont feel bad. I have 95,000+ miles and the only thing I have done with the drums are paint them lol.

Quote, originally posted by Whelan »81,000 miles I have never had the rear drums taken care of. Not sure if that is really bad or not cause most of the braking is done up front and the car still feels fine in braking. But I'm gonna have them checked out at my oil change with tire rotation and see whats up. Whats your verdict, will they be shot?I can't say for sure what condition they'll be in but brakes are part of the safety system and I think they should be kept in good working order.

yup rear drums go for a long time. I checked mine at like 50k and they were still real good. I hate them, but maybe swap pads at like 100k just to keep them good at braking.

I'll guess they're fine.I just replaced the rear brakes (disc) on my wife's 15 year-old car. They were in okay shape after 127,000 miles except for the fact that one of the pads was missing from the backing plate!

I just recently pulled my rear wheels off and the brake drums came off stuck to the wheels. My car has 104K. I bought it with 99K. I'm assuming they're the stock pads and they're still in good shape.

Dude, drums last forever... I had well over 100,000 on one car before I ever took the drums off... I bet they're just fine. I thought about checking out the shoes on my Vibe when I had it, but was unable to get the fricken drum off so I said funk dat...

Speaking of getting the drum off....What is the size of the threaded holes in the drum to enable the "get it off" because they are stuck on.

Thanks.........I needed that.Did the tire rotation today and was gonna pull the drums and blowout the dust and check the condition. Needless to say, the drums wouldn't come off.But next time ...

I just bought a 2007 w/ ~41k mi last week. We took the car to a mechanic for an inspection before buying and everything checked out good. The only thing that was reccommended was that we get the brakes adjusted & cleaned. The garage said it was the rear brakes & the parking brake. I made an appt to have this taken care of on Fri, but was wondering what exactly do they do for a brake adjustment & if it's normal for the car to be needing it @ 41k? Just trying to figure out if this is necessary. The guy at the garage said that this is just routine maintenance & the car has no safety issues. Btw, the car does not have ABS.

Heck, I've got 125k miles on my stock FRONT pads and rotors. Drums should go 400k.

anyone know how thick new rear pads should be.Mine are at 6/32nds.

rear pads? Do you have disk brakes? Not sure on thickness but 6/32's will probably last a while on the back. It only does 15%-20% of the braking.Rear shoe adjustment with drums is just a little dial to move the resting position of the shoe in or out with respect to the drum mating surface. In theory they should self adjust when braking in reverse.