Drum brake trailer vs disc brake trailer

Hello member,

i"m after an advice from you experience members over my question, Im looking in to buying a trailer for uk standard general work but i’m not sure which one is the best one to buy specially when it comes to maintenance cost for the trailer e g: brake pad/liner, drum/discs and labour for changing brakes from my understanding drum brake involves a lot of time to get them replaced.

also estimate of miles you can get of of a pad brake or liner brake providing driving behaviour is standard, and load is standard as to average of a national uk logistics…

thank you in advance for your value time and information

regards

David

Drum brakes every time.
If you leave a trailer with disc brakes for more than a week or so the bloody brakes sieze on,they eat pads like there is no tomorrow and the discs tend to crack if your running at full weight.They are also more prone to brake fade.

Drums can absorb a lot more heat due to their size and you also have a much larger braking surface area. Maintainance is not really an issue as to change pads you have to ,in 99% of axles remove the wheels.With drums you just undo the hub nuts and pull the wheel ,brake drum and hub off as one assembly.To change the shoes takes about five minutes,repack the bearings and slide the hub assembly back on.Just chip the crud ring off around the edge of the drum and they slide on easy.
Can reline a tri axle BPW in about 3 hours.Just need a decent wheel dolly and maybe a good hub puller if the bearings fret to the axle lands.Just a ten minute bed in and your ready to go.Should last a good 80 to 100,000 km per reline.
Shoes are cheaper than pads and drums are cheaper than discs and calipers cost a bloody fortune.Just got to keep the camshaft bushes and slack adjusters greased and they last for years.If your going to wash and repack the inner bearing best to replace the hub seals but these are only a few quid.

:open_mouth: I agree with Bking :neutral_face:

And a second, won’t have anything but drums

And a third. Discs are beautiful to drive with but aside the cost issue they tend to seize more readily than drums if the trailer stands for long periods. Learned that the hard way.

Thanks guys for the information

Drums are a maintanance pita, you can go form a simple reline to camshafts/drums/bushes in a heartbeat and the german parts are very expensive.

Sadly we still run drums on the trailers at work, on the upside I only work on the trucks :grimacing:

The discs brakes basically come in two sizes and with the smaller ones you will struggle come mot time and they run hot hot hot at full weight, the larger discs same size as the trucks are the absolute mutts nuts, but like all disc brake systems if you dont or know how to look after them they can get expensive, on the other hand drums can take some abuse and you will most likely get away with it.

I hate drum brakes with a passion.

What axles would be good as I see the export demand on BPW Drum, personal I wouldn’t use Saf as I had bad time with them.

BPW eco plus but not the eco plus 2.
The torque nut idea on these axles was a stroke of genius.Big nut on the end of the axle which you tightened up till it clicked over and job done,no silly end float or torque wrenches and when undoing the nut it pulled the hub off for you.
Then they brought out another “design” which was in comparison,rubbish.Still a good axle but I guess they were not selling enough parts on the eco plus as they never went wrong so it had to go.
If you can get the eco plus axle with the pop off hub caps instead of the stupid “bayonet” caps on the plus 2 go for it.
Best axle Ive ever worked on.Even the blokes at BPW in Leicester admit the new axle was a mistake.
BPW give very good service and parts backup as well.

Punchy Dan:
:shock: I agree with Bking :neutral_face:

You shouldn’t, massive improvement in stopping distances with discs. Drums are old technology and should be banned for anything but off tarmac work and even then I’m not keen. I don’t see where the bother is with working on them.

Main reason they’re still so prevalent is trailer manufacturers get drum axles much cheaper so they push them. Spring parking brake can sometimes be a problem if you present trailers for test loaded but fine empty which is how most people test them. Also with discs brake test efficiency is more consistent across different load weights where drums are more prone to pass on locks empty and be dire laden.

We run both drum/disc frigo trailers and always prefer to pull a disc braked one.

Had a tipper trailer for 4yrs with SAF small discs loaded to 44T 8×day and through wheel wash same when on quarry work.

Never had any bother with calipers nor discs cracking,
Fitter could change pads on the 6wheels in less than an hour!!!

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Big Truck:
We run both drum/disc frigo trailers and always prefer to pull a disc braked one.

Had a tipper trailer for 4yrs with SAF small discs loaded to 44T 8×day and through wheel wash same when on quarry work.

Never had any bother with calipers nor discs cracking,
Fitter could change pads on the 6wheels in less than an hour!!!

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Thats the small discs, the small bpw disc set up is the same ie pad can be done with wheels on.

I would bet if you ask any hgv mech what he prefers and it will be discs all day long, you might not think what the mech thinks is relevant, but if hes happy you will get abetter job.

My lot have gone back to drums, a fraction of the headaches with discs and calipers.

According to many peoples opinion I think it this way
Discs are very good when are good and treated good other wise they can be too costly
Drum brake are standard technology can take the use and abuse in other word they can be maintained

davidjohn:
According to many peoples opinion I think it this way
Discs are very good when are good and treated good other wise they can be too costly
Drum brake are standard technology can take the use and abuse in other word they can be maintained

Calipers are pricey but labour’s not cheap unless you’re doing it yourself or have got fitters on the payroll and even then they could be doing more with their time.

Changing a calipers is a couple of bolts no dramas with drums you’ve got the potential for wheels corroded to drums, then if you’ve got to do the s-cam or bushing the slack aduster can be corroded to the s-cam, brake chambers you’ve got to cut and adjust the push rod to the right angle so it’s not just as straightforward as the headline cost of a disc brake parts vs drum brake parts.

Every trailer manufacturer I spoke to recommended drums. There’s no doubt that they are cheaper to maintain, but discs ■■■■■■ so much better. If drivers are honest with you they’ve all experienced near misses, and you only need that one occasion when the drums didn’t quite stop in time to make the cost argument totally irrelevant.
I opted for discs every time, why would you buy something that does half a job?

Good point about the brake effort as the trailer guys are always having issues getting enough effort on the rollers especially come mot time, something we very rarely have issues with on the trucks/discs, not counting 2nd axle brake effort on the 6x2 motors!
Ive lost count of the number of times visually good shoes have had to be replaced to get the brakes to pass.

If the op is going to be using the one trailer all the time, discs the best way in my experience.

I have had problems with seized calipers with lack of use / zero wear due to VEB / Retarder.This now doesn’t happen as at service, wind auto adjustment off then pump brakes to readjust/check operation as per Knorr Bremse.

After 4 year’s / 44 t bulk use, original pads on my Kelberg with small discs fell apart [emoji849].

Sorry to disagree with other chap but by design drum brakes will fade way before discs due to greater cooling surface area and ventilation.

Also trailer manufacturers don’t mind what axle and brake choices are made , they just charge pro rata.
Schmitz may be different because they produce their own axle, but ( tippers )they will supply as per customer preference.

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DRUMS

Wondering if any one knows/noticed the difference between the type axles:
BPW/ROR

I run one BPW and few of ROR drums and discs and one SAF with my experience based on the trucking of African continent.

  1. BPW drum seems to hold air nicely on the air tank, shoe last long 2 to 3 times longer than ROR, also it hasn’t got bearing issues compared to saf and ROR.

  2. Saf disc good when its good but major issue I have notices is the bearing gets overheat so quick and resulting more damage, parts are hard to get hold of and expensive.

  3. Ror drums parts every where but a lot of issues with the braking system infact every thing to do with brake at the axle seems to get eaten so quick but still better than SAF in a long run.

  4. Ror disc can’t comment much as I only being using it for the last 7 month with a truck has a retarder but on previous experience it was bad.

Now this is completely different operation compare to UK logistics where in uk almost every thing is in to the international standard over there we deal with plenty of Dust, heavy load 55 Ton gross weight, a lot of downhill and uphill, bad road condition some klm along the route also it is very rare to drive 30 minutes before you press a brake atleast last and finaly cheap quality spare parts chines made infact people are preferring to buy used genuine part.