What is the advantage of trailers having disc brakes?

My one son drove tank for a long time. Never once did he say " wish i had disc brakes on all the equipment". Guy up the road from me had them on a grain trailer. When the trailer set for awhile, they were stuck . Mayby that is not the case nowdays. This was a few years back.

 

So disks would have allowed the Pete to tailgate safely...got it.

You seem to own trucks which is why I don’t understand your thought process here. I recognize you now from #5, so I’ll assume you’re not a poser so follow me along.

If that guy in the Pete was really trying to stop it wasn’t because of the drum brakes because:
1. His brakes would’ve been locked up at which point disks offer no advantage over drums, or
2. The ABS stopped his brakes from locking up which again negates the better fade characteristics of disks, or
3. The roads were slippery which again negates the advantage of disks.

Now if you have driven a truck you know it is most likely following too close while not paying attention and maybe out of adjustment slacks that caused him not to stop. NOT the fault of properly adjusted drums.

BTW, My 5 yr abstract is unblemished. Never an at fault accident. Insurance premium in under $5,000 CDN. So yeah, whatever you say.

Again, The key is to know you can’t stop and drive accordingly which is my whole point about disk brakes being no better. You still need to drive with fear and respect regardless of your brakes.

Oh yeah....your 70,000 lb excavator does not impress me that’s not even a full load of grain, but Exactly where is this 22% grade?

 

Yesterday I saw a guy hauling a bridge beam for the 35w bridge over the mn river.

Biggest load I have ever seen, must have had 40 axles on his tractor and trailer, tractor had two or three pushers. Super cool stuff I should have took pics.

I wonder what kind of brakes he had, it’s a good 2 mile hill down to the bridge over the river where trucks always smoke their brakes lol.

On brakes, I’ve pulled tankers with new Pete’s with disks and old #### spreaders with drums and driven readymix with drums up to about 93k gross. I don’t really have a preference. I will say it’s easy to get the brakes too hot on a heavy readymix truck.

 

Hwy 24 in BC.
Drop down into the town of Little Fort sometime with a load on, by the time you get to the bridge at the bottom where it levels off pull into the chain up area, and get out and go smell your drum brakes. I've been up and down that hill hundreds of times, and it is the steepest paved road I have ever been on. Logging roads up the side of a mountain in the bush are steeper for sure, but personally its the steepest paved hill i have been on. One lane up and one lane down. And some twists and turns thrown in for fun. The guy was coming down with a load cattle, my driver was fine and taking his time coming down, getting near the bottom having come down 80%-90% of the hill already, the cattle hauler with 22 years of trucking experience rear ended my driver.
He had the brake pedal full down he said, there just wasn't enough brakes left after descending so far already on the steep grade. Apparently the wreck was towed away and later inspected, all brakes were found to be in legal adjustment when inspected the next day. Drums just don't do well on long steep descents, and that hill is no joke. 25 years ago when i owned a piece of junk Toyota pickup truck, I remember going up that hill in it, throttle pedal flat to the floor from the bottom to the top, and doing a whopping 55 kms/hr was all it would do. In BC we have some wild roads, any advantage we can get is always welcome.
But what really ticked me off about your post is how you talk about good brakes would slow you down so fast that your load would bust loose and come through the cab. Chain the load down properly. No amount of braking power will break free a properly secured load. Hauling loads not secured properly is DANGEROUS!
Not just for you, but everyone around you to.
If in doubt, throw more chains on it. Better to have 4 more chains than you think you need, rather than 1 too few!

 

Dont worry I haven’t had a cargo claim either.

22% is crazy obviously and probably unlike anything I’ve been down but I’m sure Rt 24 was around before disks. And I’m sure thousands managed just fine. That makes it driver error.

 

I've had to bite my tongue a little...

By your reasoning @rank , you should be fine driving a truck that only has brakes on 1 truck axle & 1 trailer axle, right? Since apparently you never make mistakes & are able to preact to road conditions 10 miles down the road...

 

Ease of maintenance, set up is a more simple design, less parts to go bad, they run much cooler so it's easier on your bearings and seals, better modulation, lower repair costs, they work much better, you don't have to drag the brakes thru water to keep them dry, they tend to stay quieter which is just a nice bonus. Most of the same reasons they are on cars and pickups. Did you have the same thoughts when power steering and ac became standards? Trucks still got the job done then too.

 

This is speaking in car terms because I build race cars for a living but the results would be the same for trucks. Cross drilled rotors allow greater heat to drop faster by letting gasses escape during braking. They don't do much to reduce pad wear, the downside is you can't really turn them. You can but it destroys bits on the lathe so it isn't cost effective. The purpose of slotted rotors is to slice a tiny bit of the pads everytime the slot passes so you always have fresh unglazed brake pad biting the rotor. there is NO point for people to run these on the street and they also wouldn't work on trucks because they murder brake pads. They too can't cost effectively be cut.

 

Think about it like this. The guys driving these probably got all pissed off when their bosses started buying that new fangled diesel. The trucks still got over the hill with a gas engine and they didn't shake like a dog crapping razor blades and you didn't have to wear hearing protection to avoid going deaf.

 

Still doesn't eliminate the risk of being rear ended by another truck because they have insufficient braking power to slow down quickly enough.