The Importance Of Automotive Brakes And How They Work

Safety is a must have when it comes to protecting yourself and your family while driving. We drive everywhere in this day and age. We drive back and forth to work, and for some of us that is a pretty long commute. We have to drive to go grocery shopping and to buy the necessities we need. Some of us even do a lot of traveling by automobile. We need to trust that our brakes will not give out on us.

Having our braking pads checked falls under the category of general maintenance. When you take your vehicle in for routine maintenance make sure you have the mechanic check your brakes, brake lines, and brake fluids. All of these are very important to maintain the safety of your brakes.

If your brake fails on you while you are driving to work or even driving your children to school it could be very dangerous or even life threatening. Failing brakes can cause a major accident that could possibly result in someone really getting hurt or death.

The brake pads on automobiles make our vehicles stop when necessary. If you cannot stop when you have to you could get hurt, hurt someone else, or really damage your vehicle. There are a few components that make the brake pads work on an automobile.

The first thing you should know is that there needs to be friction on the road in order for your vehicle to stop. Second you should know how the brakes actually work. There is a pressure that is applied to the master cylinder when you put your foot on the brake inside the vehicle. That pressure makes the piston put pressure on a bunch of hydraulic brake lines that are connected to the wheels. The braking system works by applying fluid pressure that puts pressure on the pistons which then pushes against s lining which as a result pushes against a rotating drum or disk. All of these motion sound like a lot but when you put pressure on that pedal your vehicle stops pretty quick. It is necessary for all of these steps to work properly in order for you to be able to stop you vehicle.

Over the last twenty years there has been much improvement in the braking systems that are put into new automobiles. Some vehicles have a double braking system, which means the two front wheels have a set of brake pads and the two back braking pads have a separate set in the event one of them fail you will still be able to stop.

Another improvement is that many new vehicles are made to use energy form the actual vehicle to help the braking stop without using so much pressure. Many new vehicles now use disk brake instead of drum brake. There is a good reason for this; the disk brake tends to allow more air to the actual metal part of the disk so that it will last longer than a standard drum brake. The drum brake pads were made designed to spin with the wheel and the stationary pieces inside the drum were faced with friction material that was forced against the drum when the braking was applied.

The newer disk brake works in the same manner as it also turns with the wheel, but, disk brake pads have a metal disk and a stationary caliper. The caliper puts pressure on the disk with friction material just like the drum brake with the exception of there is much more air getting to the disk allowing the disk brakes to last much longer.

In today society automobiles are part of most peoples' everyday lives, and for that reason so is the safety that comes with driving one. The last thing anybody wants is for the brakes to fail in our vehicle and someone get hurt. Making sure that our automotive brakes are in perfect working conditions are one of the most important things you need to keep maintained on your automobile. Be sure to have your automotive brakes checked often along with the brake fluid and pads that are all a part of your brake system.