I remember some claims about Russian cars with aluminium brake drums to be less prone to brake overheating (and ultimately fading) than a Western counterpart with cast-iron drums for instance.
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Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
When I drove school bus over the mountain passes for games and such the mechanic said he never had needed to change a bus brake.
All the buses had drum brakes both front and back. These vehicles were rated for over 35,000lbs GVWR. They also all had an electromagnetic eddy current retarder that worked wonders IMO. Of course we all were also trained to downshift and keep our speed under control. Between the retarder and downshifting none of the bus drivers ever needed (or need still) to use the mechanical brakes.
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One night an interstate bus driver told me he could go from Porto Alegre to Florianópolis and keep the feet away from the pedals most of the time, not only due to the adaptative cruise control and automated transmission but also due to engine-braking and retarder.
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Decades ago there was a bus that had once lost it's brakes going down Monarch Pass and several children died. From what I understand, that influenced the driver training and retarder choice after that.
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Training is always important for drivers to take benefit from some feature of a vehicle, but it's been taken more seriously when it comes to commercial vehicles, while the average Joe looks at any car in some sort of one-size-fits-all perspective.
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The vehicle may need and benefit from other types of braking, even if it's just engine braking. But that braking must be applied, and with so many drivers out there that don't have a clue what the numbers past PNRD mean it's probably best to impliment downshifting as an automatic feature
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Reminds me the day I downshifted in a Hilux that my grandfather used to have. He claimed to not have even tried it because he feared it could increase the chance of a rollover
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That or regenerative braking.
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One aspect that made me look into Toyota's hybrid system as quite likely to replace a traditional automatic transmission is exactly how the regenerative braking feature acts in a similar way to electromagnetic retarders.