Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
I have a 05 Aveo LS with 116k miles on it. For about a year now I have been having problems with my brakes. The pedal would go to the floor with very little stopping power. I keep getting the runaround from the dealor. Finally the dealor just said I need new brake pads on all 4 wheels. I did not trust them and took it to another local shopand they said I had 75% of my pads left the looked at the car and found the rear drums are not self adjusting themselves. They tested the auto adjuster and everything works fine. They found there is a design defect in the auto adjuster that keeps it from adjusting the drums. They don't know of a fix for it. So they just manually adjusted them. Guess I will have to get them adjusted manually every so often.
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
I've been wondering about this myself on my '04. I just bled the brakes and have new pads up front, but have a very "soft" pedal. Very little braking power until it nears the floor. I haven't had much of an issue, since the car is now a dedicated rallyX car... and any amount of left foot braking and the pedal turns to stone.
I never did the full proper adjustment procedure, and haven't had the chance to check it out. I did once bring it up at an inspection maybe 2 years ago, and they mentioned the adjuster... I ran in reverse to 15mph and stomped the brakes maybe 10 times and it seemed a little better. They attributed it to the lack of weight over the rear wheels and not having enough force to kick the adjuster over.
I'm still on the original shoes at 80k, and just noticed a squeak so I'll be pulling the drums in a week or so and see what I can figure out.
We might want to move this over to the technical forum.
Exo
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
did they mention what kind of adjuster it is? some require you to use the ebrake regularly, some "slip and lock" with the spreading of the pads, and others adjust really fast in reverse like exodus said..
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
Not sure if it helps you, but I think the proper "full adjustment" procedure is:
Completely loosen the parking brake at the lever, raise the rear and press the pedal until the adjuster no longer clicks (sounds like slip and lock...),
Raise the parking brake two clicks and tighten until the rear wheels are bound, lower the parking brake and check for drag.
Then do the 10 reverse runs (wtf both?).
Think this is also in the how-to section somewhere...
edit: I've also noticed that the parking brake adjustment definitely has a significant impact on pedal feel.
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by exodus0784
We might want to move this over to the technical forum.
Good idea - moved.
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
that procedure sounds like adjustment after a new pad install, BUT have to do all three of the adjustment actions does not sound right to me.
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
Re: Design defect found on 05 aveo rear drums.
so it is a "slip and lock", but all the notices in the manual i can see several spots that could allow the failure.
the cylinder and adjustment rod are on the top, only the ebrake is on the bottom which means when the pads push on the drum only the top pushes out. The bottom only pushes out when the ebrake is applied. (cant stay out because the rod is on the top.) That design also creates the adjustment rod and nut as a pivot point, and the pivot point mores out with wear. but your not using the whole pad, not really, so wear would not be very significant overall.
It says several times to press the brakes until it stops clicking, And that the nut can not be tightened against the back of the rod. This would prevent it from adjusting at all. I would probably not put it against the rod as the procedure says, i would leave a thread showing..
well honestly i will upgrade to disk.