The car brake bible - how brakes work, including disc brakes, drum brake, calipers, hoses, brake fluids and general brake maintenance, current and future brake technologies, DIY car maintenance and much more.

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Brakes - what do they do?

The simple answer : they slow you down.
The complex answer : brakes are designed to slow down your vehicle but probably not by the means that you think. The common misconception is that brakes squeeze against a drum or disc, and the pressure of the squeezing action is what slows you down. This in fact is only part of the reason you slow down. Brakes are essentially a mechanism to change energy types. When you're travelling at speed, your vehicle has kinetic energy. When you apply the brakes, the pads or shoes that press against the brake drum or rotor convert that energy into thermal energy via friction. The cooling of the brakes dissipates the heat and the vehicle slows down. This is all to do with The First Law of Thermodynamics, sometimes known as the law of conservation of energy. This states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another. In the case of brakes, it is converted from kinetic energy to thermal energy.
Angular force. Because of the configuration of the brake pads and rotor in a disc brake, the location of the point of contact where the friction is generated also provides a mechanical moment to resist the turning motion of the rotor.

Thermodynamics, brake fade and drilled rotors.

Picture credit: Formula1.com

If you ride a motorbike or drive a race car, you're probably familiar with the term brake fade which is used to describe what happens to brakes when they get too hot. A good example is coming down a mountain pass using your brakes rather than your engine to slow you down. By the First Law of Thermodynamics, as you start to come down the pass, the brakes on your vehicle heat up, slowing you down. But if you keep using the brakes, the drums or discs and brake pads will stay hot and get no chance to cool off. The next time you try to brake, because the brake components are already so hot, they cannot absorb much more heat. Once they get to this stage, you have to look at the brake pads themselves. In every brake pad there is the friction material which is held together with some sort of resin. Once this lot starts to get too hot, the resin holding the pad material together starts to vapourise, forming a gas. That gas has to have somewhere to go, because it can't stay between the pad and the rotor, so if forms a thin layer between the two trying to escape. The result is very similar to hydroplaning while going too fast in the rain; the pads lose contact with the rotor, thus reducing the amount of friction. Voila. Brake fade.
The typical symptom of this would be to get the vehicle to a stop and wait for a few minutes. As the brake components cool down, their ability to absorb heat returns, the pads cool off which means they have more chance to heat up again before the resin vapourises, hence the next time you use the brakes, they seem to work just fine. This type of brake fade was more common in older vehicles. Newer vehicles tend to have less outgassing from the brake pad compounds but they still suffer brake fade. So why? Well it is again to do with the pads getting too hot. With newer brake pad compounds where outgassing isn't so much of a problem, the pads transfer heat into the calipers because the rotors are already too hot and the brake fluid starts to boil as a result. As this happens, bubbles form in the brake fluid. Air is compressible, brake fluid isn't, so you can put your foot on the brake pedal and get full travel but have no braking effect at the other end. This is because you're now compressing the gas bubbles and not actually forcing the pads against the rotors. Voila. Brake fade again.

So how do the engineers design brakes to reduce or eliminate brake fade? For older vehicles, you give that vapourised gas somewhere to go. For newer vehicles, you find some way to cool the rotors off more effectively. Either way you end up with cross-drilled or grooved brake rotors. While grooving the surface may reduce the specific heat capacity of the rotor, its effect is negligible in the grand scheme of things. The rotors will heat up to cool down no faster or slower. However, under heavy braking once everything is hot and the resin is vapourising, the grooves give the gas somewhere to go, so the pad can continue to contact the rotor, allowing you to stop.

The whole understanding of the conversion of energy is critical in understanding how and why brakes do what they do, and why they are designed like they are. If you've ever watched Formula-1 racing, you'll see the front wheels have huge scoops inside the wheel pointing to the front (see the picture on the right). This is to duct air to the brake rotors to help them cool off because in Formula-1 racing, the brakes are used viciously every few seconds and spend a lot of their time trying to stay hot. Without some form of cooling assistance, the brakes would be fine for the first few corners but then would fade and become near useless by half way around the track.

Rotor technology.
If a brake rotor was a single cast chunk of steel, it would have terrible heat dissipation properties and leave nowhere for the vapourised gas to go. Because of this, brake rotors are typically modified with all manner of extra design features to help them cool down as quickly as possible as well as dissapate any gas from between the pads and rotors. The following diagram shows some examples of rotor types with the various modification that can be done to them to help them create more friction, disperse more heat more quickly, and ventilate gas. From left to right.
1. Basic brake rotor. 2. Grooved rotor. The grooves give more bite and thus more friction as they pass between the brake pads They also allow gas to vent from between the pads and the rotor. 3. Grooved, drilled rotor. The drilled holes again give more bite, but also allow air currents (eddies) to blow through the brake disc to assist cooling and ventilating gas. 4. Dual ventilated rotors. Same as before but now with two rotors instead of one, and with vanes in between them to generate a vortex which will cool the rotors even further whilst trying to actually 'suck' any gas away from the pads.
An important note about drilled rotors: Drilled rotors are typically only found (and to be used on) race cars. The drilling weakens the rotors and typically results in microfractures to the rotor. On race cars this isn't a problem - the brakes are changed after each race or weekend. But on a road car, this can eventually lead to brake rotor failure - not what you want. I only mention this because of a lot of performance suppliers will supply you with drilled rotors for street cars without mentioning this little fact.

Big rotors.
You know I've been drumming into you the whole mechanism that causes you to stop? How does it apply to bigger brake rotors; a common sports car upgrade? Well sports cars and race bikes typically have much bigger discs or rotors than your average family saloon car. The reason again is to do with heat and friction. A bigger rotor has more material in it so it can absorb more heat. More material also means a larger surface area, which as well as meaning more area for the pads to generate friction with, also translates to better heat dissipation. On top of that, the larger rotors mean that the brake pads make contact further away from the axle of rotation. This provides a larger mechanical advantage to resist the turning of the rotor itself. To best illustrate how this works, imagine a spinning steel disc on a pivot in front of you. If you clamped your thumbs either side of the disc close to the middle, your thumbs would heat up very quickly and you'd need to push pretty hard to generate the friction required to slow the disc down. Now imagine doing the same thing but clamping your thumbs together close to the outer rim of the disc. The disc will stop spinning much more quickly and your thumbs won't get as hot. That, in a nutshell explains the whole principle behind why bigger rotors = better stopping power.
Taking it one step further, composite brake rotors, as found on high-end Ferraris, the McLaren F1, and most Formula-1 race cars, are even better again at heat transfer.

The different types of brake.

All brakes work by friction. Friction causes heat which is part of the kinetic energy conversion process. How they create friction is down to the various designs.

Bicycle wheel brakes

I thought I'd cover these because they're about the most basic type of functioning brake that you can see, watch working, and understand. The construction is very simple and out-in-the-open. A pair of rubber blocks are attached to a pair of calipers which are pivoted on the frame. When you pull the brake cable, the pads are pressed against the side or inner edge of the bicycle wheel rim. The rubber creates friction, which creates heat, which is the transfer of kinetic energy that slows you down. There's only really two types of bicycle brake - those on which each brake shoe shares the same pivot point, and those with two pivot points. If you can look at a bicycle brake and not understand what's going on, the rest of this page is going to cause you a bit of a headache.

Drum brakes - single leading edge

The next, more complicated type of brake is a drum brake. The concept here is simple. Two semicircular brake shoes sit inside a spinning drum which is attached to the wheel. When you apply the brakes, the shoes are expanded outwards to press against the inside of the drum. This creates friction, which creates heat, which transfers kinetic energy, which slows you down. The example below shows a simple model. The actuator in this case is the blue elliptical object. As that is twisted, it forces against the brake shoes and in turn forces them to expand outwards. The return spring is what pulls the shoes back away from the surface of the brake drum when the brakes are released. See the later section for more information on actuator types.

The "single leading edge" refers to the number of parts of the brake shoe which actually contact the spinning drum. Because the brake shoe pivots at one end, simple geometry means that the entire brake pad cannot contact the brake drum. The leading edge is the term given to the part of the brake pad which does contact the drum, and in the case of a single leading edge system, it's the part of the pad closest to the actuator. The diagram below shows what happens as the brakes are applied. The shoes are pressed outwards and the part of the brake pad which first contacts the drum is the leading edge. The action of the drum spinning actually helps to draw the brake pad outwards because of friction, which causes the brakes to "bite". The trailing edge of the brake shoe makes virtually no contact with the drum at all. This simple geometry explains why it's really difficult to stop a vehicle rolling backwards if it's equipped only with single leading edge drum brakes. As the drum spins backwards, the leading edge of the shoe becomes the trailing edge and thus doesn't bite.

Drum brakes - double leading edge

The drawbacks of the single leading edge style of drum brake can be eliminated by adding a second return spring and turning the pivot point into a second actuator. Now when the brakes are applied, the shoes are pressed outwards at two points. So each brake pad now has one leading and one trailing edge. Because there are two brake shoes, there are two brake pads, which means there are two leading edges. Hence the name double leading edge.

Disc brakes

Some background. Disc brakes were invented in 1902 and patented by Birmingham car maker Frederick William Lanchester. His original design had two discs which pressed against each other to generate friction and slow his car down. It wasn't until 1949 that disc brakes appeared on a production car though. The obscure American car builder Crosley made a vehicle called the Hotshot which used the more familiar brake rotor and calipers that we all know and love today. His original design was a bit crap though - the brakes lasted less than a year each. Finally in 1954 Citroën launched the way-ahead-of-its-time DS which had the first modern incarnation of disc brakes along with other nifty stuff like self-levelling suspension, semi-automatic gearbox, active headlights and composite body panels. (all things which were re-introduced as "new" by car makers in the 90's).

Disc brakes are an order of magnitude better at stopping vehicles than drum brakes, which is why you'll find disc brakes on the front of almost every car and motorbike built today. Sportier vehicles with higher speeds need better brakes to slow them down, so you'll likely see disc brakes on the rear of those too.
Disc brakes are again a two-part system. Instead of the drum, you have a disc or rotor, and instead of the brake shoes, you now have brake caliper assemblies. The caliper assemblies contain one or more hydraulic pistons which push against the back of the brake pads, clamping them together around the spinning rotor. The harder they clamp together, the more friction is generated, which means more heat, which means more kinetic energy transfer, which slows you down. You get the idea by now.

Standard disc brakes have one or two cylinders in them - also know as one or two-pot calipers. Where more force is required, three, or more cylinders can be used. Sports bikes have 4- or 6-pot calipers arranged in pairs. The disadvantage of disc brakes is that they are extremely intolerant of faulty workmanship or bad machining. If you have a regular car disc rotor which is off by so much as 0.07mm (3/1000 inch) it will be Hell when you step on the brakes. That ever-so-slight warp or misalignment is going to spin through the clamped calipers at some ungodly speed and the resulting vibration will make you wonder if you're driving down stairs. To combat this problem, which is particularly critical on motorbikes, floating rotors were invented.

The floating rotor.
Standard brake rotors are cast in a single piece which bolts directly to the wheel or drive plate. If the mounting surface of your wheel or drive plate isn't perfectly flat, you'll get vibration at speed. Floating rotors are typically cast in two pieces - the rotor and the carrier. The carrier is bolted to the wheel and the rotor is attached to the carrier using float buttons. The other method of floating a brake rotor is to have the rotor bolted directly to the wheel itself without a carrier, but the bolts have float buttons built into them.

These buttons allow the brake rotor some freedom to move laterally, but restrict the angular and rotational movement as if they were bolted directly to the wheel. This slight lateral motion which can be less than 0.03mm, is just enough to prevent vibration in the brake system. Because the calipers are mounted solidly, and warping or misalignment in the wheel or brake rotor mounting face can be compensated for because the rotor will "float" laterally on the float buttons. This side-to-side vibration is separated from the carrier by the float buttons themselves, so none of the resulting motion is transferred into the suspension or steering. Clever eh? The rendering below shows an extreme close-up of the brake disc shown above. I've rendered the components slightly transparent so you can see what's going on.

Radial calipers / radial brakes.
Around the year 2003, motorbikes started to hit the showrooms with a new feature - radial brakes. The magazines and testers will all tell you that radial brakes make the bike stop quicker. Not true - they have nothing to do with stopping power and everything to do with the design of the front forks of the bike. More and more bikes are coming out with upside-down forks. ie. instead of the fat canister part of the fork being at the bottom of the assembly, it's at the top. This means that the fork pistons are now the part of the suspension with the wheel attached to them. It also means that it's impossible to put a stiffening fork brace down there now because the brace would need to move with the wheel, and the length of the fork pistons precludes that.
The stiffness of the front end is now entirely dependent on the size of the front axle. Bigger axle = stiffer front end. A side-effect of this design was that traditionally-mounted brake calipers could cause a lot of vibration in the steering because of flex between the wheel (with the brake disc bolted to it), and the fork leg (with the caliper). The slight tolerance allowed by floating brake rotors couldn't compensate for the amount of flexing in the forks. To reduce the brake-induced fork vibration, the brake calipers were moved around the rotors slightly so that they fell into the front-rear alignment of the wheel axle. This is because there is less lateral flex at that point, which means less or no vibration. The caliper mounts were changed too. Traditional calipers bolt on to the forks with bolts going through them at 90 degrees to the face of the brake rotor. With radial calipers, the bolts are aligned parallel to the brake rotor - effectively also in the front-rear alignment of the wheel. This design is a trickle-down technology from superbike racing where a radial caliper mount allows the racing teams to use different diameters of brake rotor by simply adding spacers to the caliper mounts.
The image on the right here shows the difference between traditional and radially mounted brake calipers.

Full-contact Disc brakes.

There is a quiet but major revolution happening in the world of brakes, and was being brought about by a Canadian company called NewTech. I say 'was' because whilst there is still reference to them spotted about the internet, their main site and contacts seem to have vanished. Anyway - rather than the piecemeal improvements we've seen over the last few years, with slight design changes, and materials improvements, the new system is a radical redesign from the ground up. NewTech designed a disc brake system called "full contact disc brakes". They looked at traditional pad and rotor design and figured that the pads only contact about 15% of the rotor surface at any one time. With a change of design, NewTech were been able to add 5 more pads to the system so that 75% of the brake rotor is in contact with the pads at any one time.
With traditional pads and rotors, the brake rotor is clamped between the pad. With the NewTech design, the brake rotor itself becomes a floating rotor, similar to those found on motorbikes. It is covered with a 'spider' (the red structure in my renderings below) and the spider has 6 brake pads on the inside of it. The hydraulic system acts on fully circular elastomer composite diaphragm behind the brake disc, mounted in the black structure in the renderings. This had 6 pads on it which push the entire disc out against the 6 pads inside the spider. This provides and even force across the entire disc to push it out, and the disc gets an even contact with all 12 pads.
To ensure the brakes remain cool, the system is covered in cooling fins connected to the outer pads to dissipate heat. The inner pads are fitted with a moulded thermal barrier made of a composite material. Special inserts made of a variety of frictional materials are distributed evenly on the entire surface of the pad. The range of materials is used to ensure performance under diverse conditions.
NewTech believed that the system had considerable advantages over conventional brakes with better cooling, higher strength and reduced noise and vibration.
NewTech sold truck and bus versions of these brakes into the haulage and public transport industry, but now Renault is considering introducing this system on its cars in conjunction with a new brake-by-wire system. Newtech's first OEM customer was to be Saleen who were going to put the system on their S7 supercar, but in the end went with conventional six-piston monoblock calipers instead. NewTech's website went offline in 2009 and has yet to be resurrected.

It's worth nothing that this isn't actually the first time this has been tried in cars. Bugatti experimented with a system like this in the late 80's for inclusion on their 1991 EB110 supercar; it was going to be available as an option for the car. People who had experienced the brakes said they were just otherworldy, that the braking power was way beyond capabilities of the average driver. They came from Aerospatiale, the French aerospace company, who also designed the chassis for the EB110 (this type of brake was being used in aircraft at the time). Bugatti dropped the idea because the brakes would have cost more than the rest of the EB110, which at $350,000 was by no means a cheap car.

The Siemens VDO Electric Wedge Brake.

Siemens VDO in Germany are trying to bring a prototype electric wedge brake (EWB) to the market. As much as it sounds like a high school prank involving underwear, it's actually the latest attempt to remove hydraulics from the braking circuit in a car. The EWB is an innovative idea based on technology developed by a company called eStop. Siemens acquired eStop early in 2005 and have been continuing their work on the wedge system ever since. The principle is both simple and clever. The brake pad is pressed against the brake rotor by means of a wedge-shaped thrust plate. The more the brake rotor turns, the harder the slope of the wedge forces the pads against it. Because of the shape of the wedge bearings and thrust plate and the rotation of the brake rotor, the pad is actually forced against the rotor harder the faster the rotor is spinning. In effect, a lot of braking force for very little input.
The system runs off a normal 12v vehicle electrical system which means no more hydraulics. It also allows the system to eliminate all the plumbing associated with ABS as the EWB is entirely electronically controlled. The final advantage, if you could call it that, is that it allows the first true all-electronic brake-by-wire system. Current brake-by-wire systems use electronics behind the brake pedal to send signals to actuators in the hydraulic system. With the EWB there is no hydraulic system so the only link from the brake pedal to the brake caliper is a 12v electrical feed and signal actuation wire.
The operation of the wedge system is based on several roller bearings and a wedge-shaped thrust plate connected to a pair of 12v electric motors. As the brake pedal is depressed, the signal is sent to the motors to start moving the thrust plate. Because of its shape and the design of the roller bearings, as the thrust plate moves, it forces the brake pad to press against the brake rotor. The reaction time of the electric motors can be measured in milliseconds - far quicker than any hydraulic system could react, so in theory, when connected to a full computer-monitored brake-by-wire system, the EWB ought to be able to shave milliseconds off brake reaction time. Doesn't sound like much but if it means a few less metres in stopping distance, that can only be a good thing.
The brake caliper unit itself has an intelligent wheel-braking module built into it. As well as the motors, bearings and wedges, the module also has a sensor system for monitoring movement and force - basically this is what replaces the traditional ABS items so each brake caliper becomes a self-governing ABS unit. Because there's no physical link back to the brake pedal any more, the ABS doesn't force the brake pedal to judder when it activates which will make it far more acceptable for a lot more drivers. Finally, because the system is totally electronic, the traditional cable-pulled handbrake can also be eliminated and replaced with a parking switch that simply activates all four EWB modules.
Of course there are pros and cons to any new system like this. Obviously reducing the weight and complexity of the braking system is a good thing, and because of the design of the EWB, there's a lot less space taken up in the engine bay, freeing up more room for the car designers to work with. But by removing the hydraulic lines, ABS actuators and sensors, and master and slave brake cylinders, the EWB concept becomes entirely reliant on the 12v electrical system and the vagaries of a computer. Knowing how often a single dodgy earth connections in a car can totally screw up the electrics, I've got to wonder what would happen if a grounding strap came loose and the electronic brake system started playing up. Will these brakes have a fail-safe or backup system like the double hydraulic circuits we use now, or will you sail off into some solid object because you've got no brakes left? Siemens aren't clear on this matter.
Until I get the chance to render up some illustrations of my own to better show how the system works, the one you see here is from the Siemens press pack. If you want to see a video demonstrating the EWB, Siemens VDO have one available here (27.8Mb mpeg).

Picture credit: Siemens press kit

Brake pad compounds.

Just a quick word on brake pad compounds. Most pads used to use asbestos but we all know what that stuff is like. Today they use all manner of combinations of materials.
The pads themselves are made up of a friction material bonded to the backing plate. The brake caliper piston pushes against the backing plate and the friction material is pushed against the brake rotor. The material combinations typically fall into the following broad categories now.

Organic

These pads are well-suited for street driving because they wear well, are easy on the ears, don't chew up the rotors and don't spew dust everywhere. They're favoured for your average family saloon because they work well when they're cold. Of course the drawback is that they don't work so well when they get hot.

Semi-metallic / sintered

This is a good compromise between street and track. These seem to be the pad of choice for sportier vehicles such as the Subaru Impreza WRX. They won't work as well as organic pads when they are cold, so you need to be a bit wary of the first couple of stops. Conversely they do work well when hot. Occasionally the weak link in semi-metallic pads is the bonding material that holds the friction pad to the backing plate. There have been occasions where the friction material has come away completely. That's infrequent though.

Metallic

These pads are typically reserved for racing or the extremely rich. They squeal and dust like crazy, are hard on rotors and don't work well when cold.

Ceramic

Ceramic pads still have metal fibers (about 15% vs. about 40% for semi-metallic) but they are copper instead of steel and therefore cause less wear and transfer heat better. They don't fade as easily as other pads, cool faster, last longer, and are effectively silent, as the sound they genereate is outside of the human range of hearing. Dogs will go crazy thought. The dust created by ceramic pads is also very light in color so your wheels look cleaner.

Brake squeal.

Squealing brakes are a sign of one of two things : the friction material is all gone and you're jamming the backing plate against the brake rotor, or the fit of the brake pad against the caliper piston isn't as snug as it could be. Either way, the squealing is the result of an extremely high-frequency vibration between the pad, the caliper piston and the brake rotor. Some vehicles have problems with squealy brakes right from the factory. In those cases, simply changing brake pad manufacturer can often cure the problem as the different pads will have a slightly different harmonic frequency, which is harder to attain. A classic example was one of the BMW R1100 touring bikes. From the factory, they'd squeal like crazy, and BMW redesigned the brake calipers and rotors a couple of times until they finally just switched to a different brand of pads and the problem vanished.

Solving brake squeal.

A good way to solve brake squeal is to put some copper-based grease on the back of your brake pads. That's very important so I'll say it again in CAPS : THE BACK. Copper grease is extremely resistant to pressure and heat and if you get any on the front of your pads, you'll need new pads and rotors or discs. The picture here shows a cutaway of a disc brake assembly. The blue caliper housing on the right is missing to show the two silver brake pistons. The idea is that it creates a small pocket of sticky lubrication between the front side of the brake pistons and the back side of the brake pads. This is usually enough to prevent the high-frequency squeal. If you're not happy doing this yourself (working on a safety-critical part of your car like the brakes isn't something just everybody should be doing) then ask your friendly greasemonkey to do it for you.
There's a few products on the market that I've heard of and/or used in the past. Noisefree is one of them CRC Disc Brake Quiet is another and then there's Copaslip. I've used Copaslip on my vehicles before with no problems. I've had positive reviews of the CRC product from people using it motorbikes and cars. Noisefree is a new player so if you've used their product and have any comments, drop me a line. All three are available in America, but I think if you're in Europe you're limited to Copaslip. Or the internet of course.

Copper grease and rubber

Whilst copper grease such as Copaslip works well in the short term to solve brake squeal, long-term, it has an adverse affect on the rubber dust seals of the caliper pistons. This can lead to the seal deteriorating or failing completely. If that happens, it leaves the piston and it's surface exposed to the very elements from which it should be protected. Just so you know.

The other solution to brake squeal

Whilst the ultra high frequency vibration is one cause of brake squeal, the other biggie is related to suspension alignment. Driving on badly-maintained roads, mountaineering through pot-holes or kerbing your wheels all make the suspension move around in ways it was never really designed to cope with, and this in turn leads to the suspension bushes becoming stressed. Normally, re-aligning the wheels on a vehicle is corrected by mechanical adjustment only. If the mounting rubbers are not de-stressed first, then it leads to the transfer of the sound generated during braking into the chassis and body which then amplifies it to where we can hear it. Sort of like a giant record player with the suspension as the pickup needle and the entire car as the speaker. If you have squealing brakes that copper grease doesn't solve, look into a proper suspension realignment and possibly new suspension bushes.

The eBay problem

This paragraph may seem a little out of place but I have had a lot of problems with a couple of eBay members (megamanuals and lowhondaprelude) stealing my work, turning it into PDF files and selling it on eBay. Generally, idiots like this do a copy/paste job so they won't notice this paragraph here. If you're reading this and you bought this page anywhere other than from my website at www.carbibles.com, then you have a pirated, copyright-infringing copy. Please send me an email as I am building a case file against the people doing this. Go to www.carbibles.com to see the full site and find my contact details. And now, back to the meat of the subject....

Brake actuators.

Brakes are all well and good, but you need some method of applying them in order for them to work. The method by which the force from your hand or foot reaches the brake itself is all to do with the brake actuator system.

Cable-operated

This is about as basic as you get. A cable is connected to a lever at each end. You press on one lever with your foot or squeeze it with your hand, and it pulls the lever at the other end. On the back of the brake-end lever there's an elliptical cam which rotates inside a circular cup in the brake shoe. As the long axis of the ellipse rotates, it forces the brake shoes to move apart. In the case of a bicycle brake, the brake-end of the cable just pulls the two calipers together.

Solid bar connection

One step up, and found on the rear brake of older motorbikes, the solid bar connection. This allows the use of mechanical advantage (see below) to amplify your force on the pedal or lever before it gets to the brakes themselves. Typically these systems are used on drum brakes with the elliptical actuator described above. The disadvantage of this system is that it needs hinge and pivot points that match the position of the suspension components. If they're not present, going over a bump could put the brakes on as the suspension moves relative to the lever.

Single-circuit hydraulic

Another step up and we get to the type of brake system used on most cars and motorbikes today. Gone are the cables and bars, replaced instead with a system of plungers, reservoirs and hydraulic fluid. Single-circuit hydraulic systems have three basic components - the master cylinder, the slave cylinder and the reservoir. They're joined together with hydraulic hose and filled with a non-compressible hydraulic fluid (see brake fluid below). When you press your foot on the brake, or squeeze the brake lever, you compress a small piston assembly in the master cylinder. Because the brake fluid does not compress, that pressure is instantaneously transferred through the hydraulic brake line to the slave cylinder where it acts on another piston assembly, pushing it out. That slave assembly is either connected to a lever to activate the brakes, or more commonly, is the brake caliper itself, with the slave cylinder being the piston that acts directly on the brake pads. Because of the arrangement of the slave cylinder, heat from the brakes can be transferred back into the brake fluid.

Dual-circuit hydraulic

Dual-circuit hydraulic systems are available on high-end luxury vehicles and newer motorbikes, in particular BMW bikes. These have two separate circuits. One is the command circuit - that's the one you act on with your hand or foot. The second is a separate circuit controlled by an onboard computer, and that's the one which is actually connected to the brakes. As you apply the brakes, you're sending a pressure signal via the command circuit to the brake computer. It measures the amount of force you're applying, and using a servo / pump system, applies the same force to the secondary circuit to activate the brakes. If you do something stupid like trying to slam on the brakes at 100mph, the computer will realise that this would result in a skid or spin, and will not send the full pressure down the secondary circuit, instead deciding to use it's speed and ABS sensors to determine the optimal brake pressure to maintain control of the vehicle. The advantage of a dual-circuit system is that the command circuit never gets heat transferred into it because it is totally separated from the brakes themselves. The disadvantage of course is that you now have two hydraulic circuits to maintain.

Brake-by-wire

The most advanced system of brakes to date are brake-by-wire. These are a direct copy of some styles of racing brakes and are very similar to the dual-circuit hydraulic system described above, but instead of the command circuit being hydraulic, its replaced with electronics. The brake pedal or lever is connected to a hypersensitive rheostat (measures electrical resistance). The more you push it, the greater the electrical signal sent to the brake computer. From there on, it performs just like the secondary circuit described above. The advantage to this system is that the brake pedal or lever can be placed just about anywhere you like as it no longer is encumbered by the plumbing that goes with a hydraulic circuit. To combat driver complaints of "lack of feel" in the brakes, most brake-by-wire systems have a reverse feedback loop built in. This measures the pressure being applied to the brakes on the secondary circuit, and actuates an electrical resistor in the pedal or lever assembly to provide resistance. This is needed because there is no physical connection to any part of the brake system at all.

Mechanical advantage - why you can stop a 2-ton car with one foot.

If you did any sort of physics classes when you were back in school, you might remember something called mechanical advantage. In its most basic form, mechanical advantage is the ratio of force-in to force-out in a mechanical system. Mechanical Advantage = Effort Torque/Load Torque.
For example a 20kg weight 1 metre from a pivot can lift a 40kg weight 0.5m from the pivot on the other side. The effort torque and load torque calculations are to do with force in Newtons and distance from pivot point. Hence torque is measured in Newton-metres, or Nm. A Newton is the amount of force required to accelerate a mass of one kilogram by one metre per second². On Earth, where acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s², the force exerted upon a mass of 1kg is 9.8N (usually rounded up to 10N). Another popular notation is lbf.ft - pound-force-feet, commonly referred to as foot-pounds. 1 Newton-metre is equivalent to 0.737 foot-pounds.
The diagram below shows a simple lever system on a pivot. The load torque is 200Nm, and the effort torque is also 200Nm. Mechanical advantage = effort / load, which in this case is 200 / 200, which is 1. ie. the system is balanced.

Now imagine increasing the weight on the effort side to 30kg instead of 20kg, but leaving everything else the same. The load torque is still 200Nm, but the effort torque is now 300Nm. Mechanical advantage = effort / load, which is 300 / 200, which is 1.5. Any mechanical advantage value larger than 1.0 means that the effort has the advantage. In this case, a 30kg weight which is lighter than the 40kg load, is able to lift it off the ground.

If you now take your new-found / remembered knowledge about physics and look at the simple lever brake system, you'll realise how it's possible to generate enough force using your foot to stop a car or motorbike. Look at this diagram of the lever-operated cam brake.

This system has 4 levers in it. The middle two have no mechanical advantage as the levers are connected the same distance from the pivot in each case. However, look at the pedal. The values I've put in are arbitrary but they serve the purpose. On the pedal we have some amount of force 20cm from the pivot, but the other end of the lever is only 5cm from the pivot. This gives us a mechanical advantage of 4 on the brake lever (20cm / 5cm).
At the other end, the lever attached to the cam is still a lever system - it's just bent. The input lever is 10cm long but the cam is only 4cm across - or 2cm to the tip from the pivot. So at the brake cam we have a mechanical advantage of 5. (10cm / 2cm). So across this entire system, we have a total mechanical advantage of 20 - 4 from the brake pedal and 5 from the lever and cam. Apply force to this little system and be amazed. The units of force used are irrelevant - they're multiplied just the same. To use easier-to-comprehend values, let's imagine that when you're braking, your foot is pushing on the brake pedal with about 60pounds of force - 27Kg. Through the brake pedal, that is amplified 4 times to 240pounds, and through the lever and cam its amplified a further 5 times from 240pounds to 1200pounds. You pushed the pedal with 60pounds of force, but the cam inside the drum brake is being forced out against the brake drum with 1200pounds of force - about 544Kg. Sweet.

Mechanical advantage as applied to hydraulics.

Most braking systems now use hydraulics. This is a slight change in the equation but the concept of mechanical advantage still exists, this time by the use of pressure equations. Pressure = force / area. If you apply 20 Newtons of pressure to 1m², it's the same as applying 200 Newtons to 10m². Why? Because 20 Newtons of force divided by 1m² of area generates 20 Pascals of pressure. Similarly, 200N / 10m² is also 20Pa.

If you now think of that in terms of a hydraulic braking system, it becomes clear how mechanical advantage works for you. Brake fluid is incompressible - it has to be. This is good because it makes calculation for hydraulic brake systems quite easy - you can eliminate the internal pressure from the equation.
Split the system into two parts - input and output - the brake pedal and the brake caliper piston.
For each part, Pressure = Force / Area. The Pressure is the same at all points in the system, so some basic algebra gives a simple formula:

Using our previous example, we apply 60pounds (27Kg) of input force to the brake pedal. This is attached to a master piston which (for example) is 1.25cm across - ie. it has a surface area of 0.000491m² (remember your maths? area = PI x r²). At the other end of the system is the caliper piston, which for example is 2cm across - ie. it has a surface area of 0.001257m². Using our sparkly new formula, the output force from the caliper piston is
60 x (0.001257m² / 0.000491m²) Get your calculator out and that comes out to 154pounds (69.8Kg) - more than double the force at the brake pedal. The ratio of output area to input area is sometimes referred to as the area differential.

So that, my friend, is why you can stop a speeding vehicle with a single foot.

Power Brakes and master cylinders.

Power brakes (also known as power assisted brakes) are designed to use the power of the engine and/or battery to enhance your braking power. Whilst you can generate a fair amount of force using your foot, using systems from elsewhere in the car to help you apply even more force means that you get more powerful brakes as a result.
The four most common types of power brakes are: vacuum suspended; air suspended; hydraulic booster, and electrohydraulic booster. Most cars use vacuum suspended units (vacuum boosters). In this type of system, when you press the brake pedal, the push rod to the master cylinder opens a vacuum control valve. This allows vacuum pressure (normally from the intake manifold) to "suck" on a diaphragm inside the vacuum assist unit. This extra vacuum suction helps you to produce more force at the pedal end of the brake system.

Hydraulic booster systems usually utilise pressure from the power steering system to augment pressure on the master brake cylinder.

Electrohydraulic booster systems use an electric motor to pressurize the hydraulic system downwind of the brake pedal which has the effect of amplifying the internal pressure in the whole system.The advantage to this system is that as long as you have battery power, you have power brakes even if the engine fails. With vacuum-assist brakes, no engine means no assistance.

If you're curious about how power brakes work, go out to your car and with the engine off, step on the brakes. They'll have a slightly solid, almost wooden feel to them. Turn the engine on and do it again and you'll notice a lot less back-pressure on the pedal. This is the power assist which is making it easier for you to depress the pedal.

The components of a master cylinder.

Brake master cylinders are complicated affairs involving finely manufactured parts, minute tolerances, springs, o-rings and rubber seals. The diagram below is a simplified representation of a dual-circuit master brake cylinder. When you step on the brake, its connected to the main plunger (on the right side of this image). As this is pushed into the master cylinder it acts on the components inside. The rear plunger (in blue) is the first one to start moving. As it moves forward, brake fluid from the reservoir is sucked in through the fluid intake and return port. At the same time, fluid is sucked in through the equalisation port. As the second circuit rear seal passes the intake and return port (about 1.5mm after the plunger starts moving), it creates a fixed volume of fluid between the rear and front plungers. The more you step on the brake pedal, the more this fluid is now forced out into the second brake circuit to apply those brakes. At the same time, the pressure building up in this area overcomes the strength of the first circuit return spring and the front plunger (red) begins to move too. As with the rear plunger, it too sucks fluid from the reservoir until the first circuit rear seal passes the fluid intake and return port (again about 1.5mm), trapping fluid between it and the front of the master cylinder. This fluid is then forced out into the first brake circuit, applying those brakes.
When you take your foot off the brakes, the return springs push the plungers back into their neutral position. Fluid returns to the brake fluid reservoir and the system goes back to an unpressurised state.

One last thing about brake master cylinders: they used to cost an absolute bomb to replace. Historically if your 20 year old beater developed a leak, it was probably cheaper to buy another used car than to replace the master cylinder. Nowadays not so much. The internet changed all that in the mid to late 90's with online parts stores, which drove prices right down. Now you can pick up new master cylinders for $200 or so. That's a price break which is cheap enough that it's silly to get your leaking one remanufactured when you can just grab a new one.

Cross-linked brakes - why there are two brake circuits.

In the rendering of the master brake cylinder above, you'll see there are two plungers and two brake circuits. This is the most common design for cars today. It's a form of redundancy in the brake system. The idea is that only two brakes, one front and one rear, are on either of the brake circuits. For four brakes, you therefore need two circuits. But why? Well imagine one of your brake lines springs a leak - for the sake of argument, the front-left brake. If all four brakes were on a single circuit, when the master cylinder began to pressurise the brake system, fluid would spurt out of the broken line and pressure would never build up. In turn, that means none of the brakes would ever come on and you'll sail merrily into the back of the vehicle in front of you.
Imagine the same scenario with two circuits. As the first circuit pressurises the front-left and rear-right brakes, fluid spurts out of the broken line and those brakes are never applied. However because the master cylinder is also pressurising a separate second circuit connected to the front-right and rear-left wheels, those brakes do apply and you've still got braking force. Sure, it's reduced, but it's a hell of a lot better than no brakes at all. Because of the front-left to rear-right and front-right to rear-left linking of the brake circuits, this type of system is known as cross-linked brakes. The rendering below shows an example arrangement of cross-linked brakes.

A word about handbrakes.

It's worth spending a moment here to talk about handbrakes. Or parking brakes, e-brakes or emergency brakes depending on where you come from. Whilst they're good for doing handbrake turns, they're not especially effective at actually slowing you down. They will - don't get me wrong - but you won't be seeing any stellar performance out of them so the term 'emergency brake' is a bit of a misnomer. So why is this? Well, handbrakes are cable-actuated for a start so the amount of power they have is wholly dependent on the amount of tug you have in your arm. There's no hydraulic system to help you out. Apart from that, they only work on the rear wheels, so you're not getting four-wheel braking. On drum-brakes, the handbrake is connected to a small lever that pivots against the end of one of the brake actuating pistons. When you pull the handbrake, the lever gets pulled and the brake shoes are pressed out against the inside of the drum.
On disc brakes, the handbrake normally works a second set of brake pads in the rear caliper. They're little spots, about the size of a grown man's thumbprint and they're clamped mechanically against the brake rotor. These pads never need changing because they're normally only used at standstill so generally don't wear much. Their small size is the other reason you shouldn't expect stellar stopping performance if you yank on the handbrake. That being said, there are derivatives of disc-based handbrakes that use a mechanical arm to press the main brake pads against the rotor although these are less common as far as I know.

When to use handbrakes

Typically you ought to use your handbrake whenever you're stopped somewhere, be it parked, on a hill or waiting at traffic lights. The reason is simple : if you're parked or stopped, you generally don't want the car to run off without you. At traffic lights, it's an accident minimisation function as much as anything. If you're sitting there with your foot on the brake and someone drives into the back of you, the impact will cause you to take your foot off the brake and you'll go sailing into the car in front, causing more accidents. If you have the handbrake on in the same scenario, your car will largely stay put (apart from the initial shove across the ground as the energy from the impact is dissapated through your tyres). Of course there are personal habits and mechanical complications to contend with here. For example in a car with an automatic gearbox, it's force of habit to just use the footbrake. Even so, you should still use the handbrake when you're parked, especially on an incline. The 'park' setting on automatic gearboxes isn't sufficient to hold a car on a hill, and apart from that, it puts incredible strain on the transmission and clutch system if you let the whole weight of the car transfer into the transmission to try to keep it from moving.
In some American cars, the handbrake isn't a handbrake at all, it's a second footbrake on the far left side of the footwell, which is basically totally useless because it's a pain to put on and even more of a pain to get off because it's a one-way ratchet system (you have to force the pedal all the way down to get it to release). Then there's the ignorance factor. When I went to my new owners orientation evening after buying a Subaru in America, one lady asked what the parking brake was for. (Apparently the name wasn't obvious enough). The dealer representative told her it was a relic of days gone by, not to be used, and he didn't understand why manufacturers even put them in cars any more!

When not to use handbrakes

The first and most obvious answer to this is : when you're going at any speed. If you yank on the handbrake at any speed much over 30km/h, the back end of your car will start to slide. Great for stunts and tricks, not so great if you're trying to stop in 5 lanes of crowded motorway traffic.
The other time you should not use your handbrake is in post-snow, freezing conditions. With the salt and grit that gets put down on the roads, you'll be driving through a salty, snowy slush and it will be spraying all over the underside of your car. If you park and put the handbrake on, you risk it binding on by freezing. Why? Well handbrake cables are almost always exposed to the elements at some point under your car. If you put the handbrake on and the cable is covered in slush, as it freezes again it will lock the handbrake on. There's no solution to this other than waiting for the weather to warm up. Well, not unless you fancy a crack at the Darwin Awards, because some people have tried using blowtorches to thaw the ice, not understanding that they were working right underneath the petrol tank. So here's a tip : don't.
If you need to park in those types of conditions, try to find level ground and leave your automatic gearbox in "p" or your manual gearbox either in first or reverse gears.

Regional variations

One last thing to know about handbrakes : for some reason, from-the-factory settings on handbrakes vary largely with region. In Europe for example, the handbrake is easily capable of exerting enough friction to prevent the engine from being able to move the car from standstill. In America, it's not uncommon to see handbrakes adjusted to lightly that even when fully on, you can just drive off. The only way you'll notice is the handbrake light on the dash, the lack of performance, or the smell of burning as your rear brakes burn off.

Anti lock Braking Systems - ABS

Stop without skidding, and maintain control of the vehicle. That's the premise of ABS. It was first introduced in the 1980's and has been undergoing constant refinement ever since. The system is typically comprised of 4 ABS rings, 4 sensors, an ABS computer and a number of pressure-management circuits in the brake lines. The ABS rings are attached either to the wheels, or more often, to the brake discs. They look like a notched ring - see the image to the right.
The sensors are magnetic field sensors which are held very close to the ABS rings and can detect the slight change in magnetic field as the teeth on the ring pass them. The pulsing field tells the ABS computer that the wheels are spinning, and how fast they're spinning.
When you brake, the wheel rotation starts to slow down. The ABS computer "listens" to the input from the sensors and can detect if one wheel is slowing down much quicker than the others - the precursor to the wheel locking up. (This all happens in milliseconds, by the way). When the computer detects this condition, a pressure regulator in the brake circuit interrupts the pressure in the brake lines by momentarily reducing it so that the brakes release just enough to give the wheels a chance to keep spinning rather than locking up. The computer then instructs the regulator to re-apply full pressure and again measures the wheel rotation. This on/off/measure cycle happens around 15 to 30 times a second. If the ABS kicks in, you'll feel it through the brake pedal as a vibration because the pulsing in the brake circuit affects all the components.

Newer generation ABS systems

As technology marches on, so does the control / feedback system used in ABS. It used to be the case that any single wheel approaching lockup would cause the ABS system to pulse the brake pressure for all the wheels. With the latest vehicles, the ABS computer is connected to 4 pressure regulators instead of just the one. This means it can selectively apply pulsed braking only to the wheel(s) that need it. So if three of the tyres are gripping well, but the front-left is beginning to skid, the ABS can unlock the front-left brake and pulse it to try to regain grip. It's called three- or four-circuit ABS and it's all very James Bond. When hooked up to the traction control system, this type of multi-circuit ABS can also be used to influence the overall traction of a car in extreme maneuvers, such as helping to prevent rollover and inside-wheel-lifting.

ABS and skid control

So how to talk about the biggest misconception about ABS - that it will make you come to a stop more quickly? This is a prickly subject to talk about. In one camp you have drivers like me who just can't stomach the idea of a computer breaking the physical connection between my right foot and the brake system. Whilst in the other camp you have people who believe that ABS is the best thing since sliced bread. It's these people in the second camp who have the all-out belief that ABS will help you stop faster, and in certain conditions, this is true. On a wet or greasy road surface where the traction is severely reduced, an ABS system can pulse the brakes and prevent lockup much better than a human can. But why? The whole point of brakes is to slow you down. To do that they rely on friction in two places - between the brake pads and the rotors, and between the tyres and road surface. If one of those factors is taken out of the equation, the brakes become useless. The most typical situation is that a driver will panic-react to something and step on the brakes with as much power as they can muster. The brake system amplifies this power, grabs hold of the brake rotors and the wheels stop turning almost instantly. This causes the tyres to now skid across the road surface, and as they do so, they become subject to dynamic attrition. In other words, if a tyre is rotating and gripping the road, the "stick" factor is much higher than if the wheel is locked and skating across the same surface. So that's what ABS does - in an emergency, it ensures that the wheels don't lock up but instead keep spinning so that the tyres maintain grip with the road. (That's where ABS gets its name - Anti-Lock Brakes.) This is where the real benefit of ABS comes into play. If you're going to attempt to avoid an accident, the best thing to do is to try to steer around it. If your tyres are skidding on the road surface, you can point your wheels pretty much wherever you want because the actual direction you end up going will have nothing to do with the wheels and everything to do with the direction you were travelling, combined with the camber of the road. Once the tyres lose grip, all bets are off. With ABS, if those wheels keep turning and the tyres keep gripping, then when you ham-fistedly grab the steering and yank it to one side, the car will still turn and you might be able to avoid the accident. So that's the true essence of ABS - to maintain control over the direction of the car.

So why the negativity, Chris?

My bone of contention with ABS is not so much to do with the technology as the placebo effect is has on drivers. ABS is widely misunderstood and if you ask most drivers, they'll tell you that ABS helps them to stop more quickly, and as I illustrated above, in certain conditions this is true. But even the most well-trained driver is going to be subject to panic in an emergency, and more often than not, will lock their arms on the steering wheel bracing for the coming impact. Once you do this, you're no longer steering so the ABS is trying to give you control over your car but you're not taking advantage of it. Given that this is the most natural human instinct, people accept this as "the way of crashes" but somehow believe that if they have ABS, they'll be able to stop before they get to the point of impact, and that's simply not true. I believe too many people think ABS gives them a license to drive faster, because they mistakenly believe that it will get them out of any situation. It's yet another technical placebo that has been put into vehicles which is making the standard of driving worse. The more gadgets and "driver aids" that get put into a car, the worse the drivers become because they live in a rose-spectacled world where they believe that it's the car's responsibility to get them out of any sticky situation that might arise. It bothers me so much I have a "rant" page dedicated to it here : Nanny Cars.

Political correctness and the push for ABS in every vehicle

It's a widely perpetrated myth that speeding is the cause of most accidents, so it follows that if you can develop a method of helping drivers to bring their vehicles to a stop in a more controlled fashion, you'll help to reduce the number of accidents. Good idea, but it doesn't have a lot of substance to it. If you check my page with studies on the facts vs. the fiction of speeding, you'll see that only 4% of all accidents are caused by loss of control of the vehicle with excessive speed as the primary contributing factor. So ABS wasn't really designed for that - it's difficult to reduce the incidence of the already lowest cause of motoring-related accidents. In truth, distracted drivers (like I mentioned above, driving in their cosetted mobile living rooms), their actual ability to drive properly (training and advanced driver courses) and their ability to have some form of spatial awareness are much bigger factors than speed itself and none of those can be overcome by clever braking systems. Shouldn't we be pushing for more driver training programs to attempt to treat the real cause of the accidents rather than simply putting a bandage on the result?
So what about the emotive issue of pedestrian accidents? What if you, the driver, could stop quicker? It's a staggering fact that 84% of vehicle-pedestrian accidents are actually the pedestrian's fault and in most of those cases, even if you could have stopped on a dime, the accident would not have been prevented. Seriously. Read the the facts vs. the fiction of speeding page - you'll be astonished. I'm not condoning running over pedestrians - that would be stupid. I know first-hand what it's like - I had one of those 84% jog out in front of me using his cellphone when I was riding my motorcycle some years ago. I hit him square in the back despite being hard on the brakes, and threw him a good 10 metres down the road. He survived with some scrapes and bruises but I still think about it to this day. I can't begin to imagine what it would have been like if the stupid bugger had actually died.

ABS in snow and ice, and on gravel

Ah yes. The subject of a good 75% of the emails I get about ABS. The two camps for this argument are split almost exactly 50/50. In one camp, those like me who from experience would rather have their tyres lock up in deep snow to give me at least a fleeting chance of having them dig through the snow to find some road. Those who have anecdotal evidence that ABS is total crap in snow and ice. Whilst in the other camp, those who again believe ABS will somehow magically stop them from crashing in the same conditions. Those who have similar anecdotal evidence disproving all those in the first camp.
ABS by its very nature is designed to stop the wheels from skidding by allowing them to keep turning. On deep packed snow and ice, that's exactly what they're going to do - skid, so ABS effectively removes a considerable amount of your braking in an emergency in these conditions. It's why some cars have ABS disable systems for snow and ice, and it's why ice racers yank the fuse to the ABS system before they even get in a car to race.
The ABS Education Alliance, a group aiming to help educate drivers on how ABS will best benefit them, has this to say on the subject:
Even in fresh snow conditions, you gain the advantages of better steerability and stability with four-wheel ABS than with a conventional system that could result in locked wheels. In exchange for an increased stopping distance, the vehicle will remain stable and maintain full steering since the wheels won't be locked. The gain in stability makes the increase in stopping distances an acceptable compromise for most drivers.
So the short answer to this debate is that ABS is worse in snow and ice for overall stopping distance, but better for controlability.

The hidden gremlin of ABS - what they don't advertise.

If you look at the statistics for crashes, a large percentage of them are "fender benders" - low-speed impacts that only do a little damage and so slow that the vehicle occupants are in no danger; normally about 10mph. I'll give you one guess what the typical "minimum activation speed" is for ABS. That's right. On a lot of vehicles, the ABS is useless much below about 10mph. Seriously. Try it yourself. Find an empty road on a slight downhill grade - even better if its on a dewy morning. Run your ABS-equipped car up to about 10mph and jam on the brakes as hard as you can. The car will skid to a stop and the ABS system will remain totally silent.

Aftermarket ABS systems

To the best of my knowledge, there's no such thing. A few years back a couple of companies tried to market what they called ABS systems that could be retrofitted to any vehicle. The product was a cylinder with a pressure-relief valve in it. The idea was that you inserted this system into the brake circuit somewhere. When you stomped on the brakes - symptomatic of locking up the wheels - the pressure relief valve opened and bled off some brake fluid into the cylinder, thus lowering the braking pressure being sent to the wheels. The idea was to take the "spike" off the initial push of the brake pedal so it wasn't ABS at all. The whole idea of putting something like this into a brake circuit makes me shudder - I wouldn't want to be the person trying to get their insurance and medical claims through after an accident when the investigators found one of these contraptions in their brake line!

A final thought on ABS

Consider this: if you're in an accident and your ABS works perfectly, you'll leave no skidmarks on the road surface. An inspection of the car will show the brakes and ABS system are working perfectly but the absence of skidmarks could lead the police accident scene investigator to believe you didn't brake at all. That in turn could lead to you being the "at fault" driver with all the consequences that involves. Think about it. This exact scenario happens many times every day. Amongst all those ABS-related emails I get, at least one a week is telling me about someone who's had this problem.....

Remember : ABS attempts to ensure that your car stops in the shortest distance possible for most road surfaces. It is not a substitute for you, the driver, paying attention to the road and your driving.

Brake-assist and collision warning systems

Picture credit: Volvo

By 2006, brake-assist and accident warning systems were starting to find their way into consumer cars. I for one just don't like the idea. The manufacturers are reinforcing the misconception that the driver is no longer responsible for their actions. Volvo's collision warning system (CWS), for example, constantly monitors your speed and uses a radar with a 15° forward field of view to determine the distance to any object in front of you. If the distance begins to shrink but you don't slow down, the system sounds a buzzer and flashes a bright red light in a heads-up display to alert you. The brake pads are automatically placed against the discs and when the driver finally does use the brakes, the system monitors the pedal pressure. If the pressure is determined to be too light, the braking power is amplified by the system.
It's a great idea, but the TV commercials for this system need some serious attention. Volvo's commercials actually show a woman driving a Volvo, arranging papers on her passenger seat and talking on a cellphone. When the collision warning system activates and she looks up, bemused, then applies the brakes to avoid running into a truck in front of her - a truck that she would have seen and presumably slowed down for had she been paying attention. I know it's not meant to be taken this way, but that Volvo commercial actually appears to be promoting distracted driving - Volvo will attempt to save you from your own ineptitude because apparently it's just too inconvenient now to be paying attention to the road ahead.
Rather than train drivers to understand that they need to be responsible for their actions, that they need to be alert to their surroundings and that they need to pay attention when they're driving, collision warning systems essentially attempt to treat the symptoms rather than trying to cure the problem itself.
Brake-assist and auto-brakes go one step further. In some high end vehicle now (top end BMWs and Mercedes' for example), the collision-detection system is linked into the brakes like it is with the Volvo system, but it's also been given the flexibility to do all the braking for you. Adaptive cruise control, for example, will control the throttle just like a normal cruise control system, but will also apply the brakes if it determines that you're getting too close to the vehicle in front. Full auto-brakes will actually stop the car for you if you fail to respond. All these systems work in essentially the same way - they monitor the brake use and distance to the vehicle in front. If the computer thinks you're not braking hard enough, it will assist you.
These systems are all very clever but they tread the thin ethical line. Just because engineers can make their vehicles do this doesn't mean they should. Consider this: with in-vehicle monitoring and tracking systems like OnStar, and the impending satellite-tracking systems for road tolling, it's not too hard to imagine all those systems chained together in such a way that the vehicle will literally prevent you from speeding by limiting the throttle availability and controlling the brakes. If you really want to be driven like that in a vehicle over which you have no control at all, take the bus.

Now don't misunderstand me here - I think a lot of what Volvo do in vehicle safety is a good idea - the transparent A-pillars, the blind-spot assist and things like that - they all go towards eliminating problems inherent with the design of cars. But I believe putting systems into a car that attempt to compensate for the ineptitude of the person behind the wheel is a mistake. But that's just my opinion.

Other Brake Technologies

There are other brake technologies that are becoming available in vehicles now, and a lot of them are gathered together in the 2006 / 2007 BMW models. They're the rolling embodiment of clever brake engineers just showing off. Three of the more notable features are:

• Brake Drying. The X3 has rain-sensing windscreen wipers. When they sense rain, they also send information to the onboard computer. In turn, it goes into a cycle of occasionally bringing the pads into light contact with the brake rotors. This generates enough friction to eliminate any film of water that might be on the surface of the rotors, but not enough that it slows the car down or is even detectable by the driver.
• Brake Stand-by. This is a pre-emptive system that attempts to detect when sharp braking is about to happen. Potentiometers attached the accelerator can detect when the driver takes their foot off it very quickly. That would normally be followed by the brake being applied very quickly. When the onboard computer senses this condition, it moves the brake pads right up to the rotors using the same mechanism that the brake drying system uses. Ultimately, if the driver does jump on the brakes, they're ready to work the millisecond the driver's foot touches the pedal. It may not sound much but that tiny difference in distance moved, translates into a saving in time between putting your foot on the brake and the car actually slowing down. That in turn translates into forward distance - or less of it.
• Brake Fade Compensation. Right up at the top of the page I explained what brake fade was. If the brake rotor temperature begins to rise, this system increases the hydraulic pressure used to press the pads against the rotors without requiring any more pressure on the brake pedal. I'm not sure if this system has a warning light or not, but it should otherwise drivers could end up driving on horribly faded brakes without realising it, and eventually, even the extra hydraulic pressure isn't going to help.

All the above devices fall into that ethical grey area again, but unlike the brake-assist and collision-detection systems outlined earlier, these three brake technologies don't actually attempt to compensate for any wrongdoing on the driver's behalf. They simply help prepare the car for when the driver chooses to use the brakes. From that point of view, I would regard these as better technologies than those which go the whole hog and interfere with your driving.

Brake hoses - not just rubber.

Obviously with all the pressure in your brake system, the last thing you need is for the brake lines themselves to deform and flex. If they do, you lose brake pressure, and thus lose braking. Steel brake lines are no problem, but for the flexible areas of the brake lines, you need hoses. Brake hoses come in two basic flavours.

Rubber hoses.

Ah the humble rubber hose. Only on your brake lines, not so humble. I don't recommend this but if you were to get under your car and cut one of your hoses in half, you'd notice a couple of things. First, it's amazing how quick all the brake fluid that spills out will stain your clothes and literally eat the paint off your car right in front of you. But second, and more importantly, the hose itself is actually made of three parts. The inner liner is a corrosion and brake-fluid resistant compound designed (normally PTFE / Teflon® based) purely to keep the brake fluid in. Around the outside of that, there's a steel webbed mesh. This is what gives the brake hose its strength and stops it from bulging and deforming. And around the outside of that there's a slightly thicker rubber coating, which is there to weatherproof the steel mesh. The three layers together give strength, flexibility and durability.

Steel-braided hoses.

Steel-braided hoses are a slightly different design. They only really have two components - the inner hose which carries the brake fluid and is lined with a PTFE compound, and the outer steel braid which contains and flexing or bulging. Steel-braided lines resist bulging a lot better which is why a lot of aftermarket tuners opt to put them on their vehicles. One downside is that the steel braiding itself is totally merciless and if it finds something to rub against in the vehicle, it will rub right through it, even if it's an alloy. For that reason, a lot of braided brake hose manufacturers put a third layer - a thin transparent rubber sheath around the outside simply to keep everything in check and prevent scuffing and rubbing.
I upgraded the lines on my Audi when I still owned it and put Goodridge steel braided hoses on. For a 15 year old car it did make a difference to the feel of the brake pedal. It didn't bring it up to modern standards, but it was better than the flexible, bendy rubber hoses that were on it from the factory.

Where to get brake part replacements.

This seems like as opportune a place as any to mention that there are plenty of places on the internet and locally that will do you proud for brake parts and components if you decide to do it yourself. If you're looking for a good place to start shopping online, the brake lines, brake pads and brake rotors sections at AutoAnything seem as good a place to start as any. I mention them only because they sell the same Goodridge kits I mentioned above, and I was well chuffed with what that kit did to my Audi. One other thing : if you're going to be doing it yourself, a good shop manual is an absolute necessity because if there's one system on your car you don't want to be cocking up, it's the brakes.

Brake fluids.

As mentioned elsewhere on the page, brake fluid does not compress. It's a good job too - if you put your foot on the brake pedal and it went all the way to the floor, you'd be worried. But that's exactly what can happen if you disregard the "health" of your brake fluid.
Brake fluid is hygroscopic - that means it attracts and soaks up water. This is why it comes in sealed containers when you buy it, and why when the crazy guy four doors down offers you some of the 15 gallons of brake fluid he's had in his garage since the war, you should turn him down. The problem with it being hygroscopic is that if it does start to take on water, Bad Things can happen. Pull up a chair and allow me to explain.
Your typical DOT 4 brake fluid (see later for DOT ratings) boils at about 446°F (230°C). Water boils at 212°F (100°C). Imagine your brakes are getting hot because of a long downhill stretch. Whilst the brake fluid is quite OK, the temperature of the brake components might get up over the boiling point of water. If that happens, the water boils out of the brake fluid and forms steam - a compressible gas. Next time you put your foot on the brake, rather than braking, all the pressure in the brake system is taken up with compressing the steam. Your brakes go out, you don't stop.
Getting a little more complex, the boiling point of a liquid goes up with its pressure (Physics 101). So when you step on the brake, the boiling point of the brake fluid might actually go up to 500°F (260°C) and the boiling point of the water content might raise up to 250°F (121°C). This is great, you might think, because now the boiling point is higher than the temperature of the brake fluid. At least it is until you take your foot off the brake again. Now the pressure in the system returns to normal, the boiling points revert to normal and instantly the water boils off into steam again. The symptoms are slightly different now. Under this scenario, the brakes work the first one or two times, but on the third or fourth press, they stop working because now the temperature and pressures have conspired to boil the water.
The worst possible scenario is brake-fade (see right at the top) combined with air in the system. If this has happened to you, then you're likely reading this page from beyond the grave, because in most accidents where weak brakes become no brakes, there aren't any survivors.

D.O.T ratings

All brake fluids are DOT rated. Your owners handbook for your car or motorbike probably tells you to use DOT3 or DOT4 from a sealed container. The DOT ratings are a set of minimum standards the fluid must adhere to in order to get the rating, and thus work in your braking system. The following table shows the various properties of DOT ratings. Remember that the values here are the minimum values. Most manufacturers make sure their product far exceeds minimum ratings.

Boiling Point	DOT 3	DOT 4	DOT 5 (silicone-based)	DOT 5.1 (non-silicone based)
Dry	401°F	446°F	500°F	500°F
Wet	284°F	311°F	365°F	365°F

The "dry" and "wet" boiling points in the table above are for brake fluid which is fresh from the bottle (dry) and which has a 10% water content (wet). A DOT study in 2000 discovered that on average, the brake fluid in a vehicle absorbs about 2% water every 12 months.
The two types of brake fluids shown in the table are DOT3/DOT4/DOT5.1 which are glycol (Polyalkylene Glycol Ether) based, and DOT5 which is silicone based. DOT3 and DOT4 fluids are interchangeable* - the only real difference is their boiling point. Theoretically you could interchange DOT4 and DOT5.1 fluids too but I wouldn't recommend it. DOT3/4/5.1 and DOT5 fluids cannot be mixed or interchanged under any circumstances. They mix like oil and water (ie. they don't) and the silicon based fluids can destroy the seals in brake systems which rely on the moisturiser additives that are present in DOT3/4/5.1 fluids.
Other things you ought to know about silicone based fluids:
- they are resistant to absorbing water, which is why their wet boiling points are so high. Problem is that any water content eventually pools in the low spots of the brake system and causes rust.
- they don't strip paint.
- they are not compatible with most ABS system because they doesn't lubricate the ABS pump like a glycol based fluid.
- putting this fluid in systems which have had DOT3/4 fluid in will cause the seals in the caliper and master cylinders to malfunction. Which means they need replacing. Which is expensive.

Oh, and don't ask me why DOT5.1 is glycol and DOT5 is silicon based. It doesn't make and sense to me either.

* There has been some discussion as to the use of DOT4 fluid in Toyotas that recommend DOT3 fluid - apparently something in the Toyota braking system doesn't play well with DOT4 fluid, particularly the master brake cylinder seals. The discussion about this can be found in the archives at the UK Pruis yahoo group.

Brake warning lights

Most cars nowadays have a brake warning light on the dash. Its purpose is to alert you that something is wrong in the braking system somewhere. If it comes on, check your owner's manual to find out its meaning. Unlike the single-purpose ABS warning light, the brake warning light doesn't have a standard meaning; it could be used for multiple purposes. For example, the same light may be used to show that the hand brake (parking brake for the Americans amongst you) is on. If that's the case and you're driving, you ought to have noticed the smell of burning brake dust by now. The light can also indicate that the fluid in the master cylinder is low. Each manufacturer has a different use and standard for this light. Which is nice. Because it would be such a drag if the same indicator meant the same thing in every vehicle.

If you've got an ABS-equipped car, you also have a second light - the ABS light. If it comes on, get it seen to as soon as possible. It means the ABS computer has diagnosed that something is amiss in the system. It could be something as simple as dirt in one of the sensors, or something as costly as an entire ABS unit replacement. Either way, if that light is on, then you, my friend, have got 1970's brakes. It's important to note that this light normally comes on when you start the car and then switches off a few seconds later. If it stays on, blinks, throbs, flashes or in any other way draws your attention to itself, take note. It's not doing it just to please itself.

If you see this light on your dashboard, then congratulations - you're flying the service module on an Apollo mission. The bad news is that you've got a current drain somewhere and your main batteries are critically low. Either way, drop me a line and let me know how you snagged a seat on a spaceflight - I'm dying to know.

And finally....LED replacement bulbs

You might have seen websites and automotive shops stocking LED replacement bulbs for cars and motorbikes. The most basic replacements look like those on the right - a cluster of 19 or 24 LEDS (light emitting diodes) in a housing with a regular push-fit or bayonet plug on the back. The idea is that if you want brighter lights, you can replace your tail or turn lights with these LED replacements. There is a gotcha though that the manufacturers often hide in the smallest of small print. A lot of vehicles (cars and motorbikes) have onboard diagnostics which include a light check. Some of these use resistance to figure out if a bulb has blown. LED clusters have a radically different resistance to a filament bulb and its possible that when you replace your bulbs with LED versions, your car will continuously tell you that one or more bulbs is burned out. Getting one step more severe, if you use LED turn bulbs, your indicators could flash quicker or slower than you're used to (indicator circuits use the natural resistance of the bulbs in conjunction with the relay to dictate the flash speed). The worst case scenario though is ABS; some motorbikes have very tightly regulated voltages in their ABS systems and taking the filament bulb out of the brake light to replace it with an LED bulb can cause ABS errors and theoretically, an ABS shutdown. Granted thats worst-case scenario, but it is a possibility.
The way around all these electrical load problems is to add resistance or ballast to the bulb replacement, and this is becoming more common now. Essentially, resistors are added in-line with the LEDs to provide the same sort of resistance to current flow that an incandescent bulb would, thus making the retrofit kits far more compatible with existing car or motorbike electrical systems. CycoActive make kits like this for motorbikes now. You can see an example on the left here which shows the LED unit as a complete replacement for the tail unit on a bike, with a bayonet connector to fit into the old socket. The blue items are the ballast resistors designed to induce sufficient load in the electrical system for the diagnostics to register the unit as a regular lightbulb.

Picture credit: CycoActive