Driving Practices That Can Prolong Your Braking System
Your car's braking system is a vital safety feature that should function optimally. Brakes help you avoid accidents, and sometimes they mitigate the extent of damages when the collision is inevitable. Even though routine maintenance is necessary, you may encounter brake-related issues more often than usual. Your vehicle might have a fault bigger than the brakes in such a case.
Common examples of such problems include excessive loading on your wheels, failing rotors, brake fluid fade, misaligned wheels, or bad callipers. Moreover, your driving habits might be why your brakes wear out quickly. This piece explores a few practices that can save your brakes.
Avoid late braking
Brake pads resist a lot of force during braking, which is often the leading cause of wear and tear. This force varies depending on the speed, weight of the vehicle and braking distance. It would help if you also acknowledged other factors that affect your ability to brake within the desired distance, such as the condition of your tyres and the road to avoid using your brakes for emergency stops.
Braking instantly means your brakes contend with more momentum than when you brake at a slow pace as you approach your stop. The momentum reaches your brakes, and the friction reduces your speed. Therefore, the momentum directly affects the rate of wear and tear of your brakes. Momentum varies directly when the speed changes, and hence you can reduce it by avoiding late braking.
You can try a coasting tactic whereby you decelerate the vehicle by taking your foot off the accelerator at a steady rate. Coasting helps decelerate the car at a constant rate. This method is useful when approaching a junction with a red light or any other scenario where you anticipate a stop. It helps reduce the strain on your braking system.
Avoid resting your leg on the pedal
Most driving schools teach drivers to shift the foot from the accelerator and hover it over the brake pedal in anticipation of a stop. The cover-the-brake tactic is essential in an emergency. Your instructor encourages this habit to ensure that you can easily switch from the accelerator to the brake pedal when driving.
Still, some drivers avoid the fatigue caused by hovering the foot and instead rest it on the pedal. Resting your foot on the brakes is a sure way of confusing other drivers on the road. You may also end up causing unnecessary wearing of your brakes.
Avoid braking for too long
If you drive downhill and want to avoid high speeds, the obvious temptation is to keep your foot on the brakes until the vehicle reaches a comfortable pace. However, this habit increases the possibility of brake failure. Brakes overheat, and they respond less quickly. The stopping time also increases when your brakes overheat.
Using the transmission system instead, you can avoid causing such inefficiencies in your braking system. For example, switching to a lower gear lets your engine absorb a portion of the force and sheds some of the speed away. Some cars with an automatic transmission may also have manual override mechanisms that allow you to engage a lower gear. Therefore, always look for better methods of reducing the speed instead of using brakes.
Adopting some of the habits discussed in this excerpt can help prolong the life of your braking system and minimise the risk of brake failure and accidents. Nevertheless, your braking system requires regular maintenance and repairs to ensure your vehicle stops when and where you want.
At Stopmaster Brakes, we are your one-stop-shop for brake servicing, maintenance and consultation. Contact our team today for any queries regarding your car's braking, or engage us to service your braking system.
