brake drum and shoe recommendations

[passtimik]

Searching for new rear drums and shoes for my 04 vibe. What's good, bad or mid grade?? I was gonna go all Centric, but they seem like such a low price compared to others. Is it a different metal compound that makes the prices so different? Same question for drums. I drive kinda hard, so i want good quality. Doesnt seem to be a lot of good detailed info out there for drums and shoes compared to rotors and pads.

[Kincaid]

Can't swear by Centric drums, but I did recently replace warped rotors on my Honda Civic with Centric brand. They looked just like the ones that were replaced and so far (500 miles?) they are doing the job. The Centric rotors are electro-painted/coated everywhere that is not brake pad contact surface parts so I really appreciate that because they do not rust.

[CharlesinGA]

I've only replaced a couple of drums in the past 40 years of owning cars and maintaining them. My '67 Falcon with all drum brakes and over 300K mi has all of the original drums. When I'm replacing shoes and cylinders, I sometimes take them to an auto machine shop and have them cut the ridge out of the edge of them, if they are really grooved I'll tell them to get the worst out but don't cut them to limits just to get all the grooves out.

Brake drums are quite forgiving and the rear brakes on most vehicles do very little work. My '91 Ranger with 270+K mi on it has the original '91 brakes on the back, and they are not half worn out. I sold my '99 Plymouth Breeze with 234K mi and again, the original, untouched rear drums on it.

I'll be peeved if I have to do anything to my Vibe's rear brakes in the next couple of hundred thousand other than possibly replacing a leaking cylinder. I did remove the drums and lightly bead blast the outside to remove the rust (looked terrible thru the aluminum wheels) and painted them flat black.

Charles