Brakes

[jcwhitty]

I was wondering the average life for a set of brakes on 2003 Diesel Winnebago Horizon/Journey, freightline chasis, and the approximate cost of doing a brake job. Do you normally need to replace drums, or are the drums normally be turned a number of times?

Thanks, John

[Beabop]

Do you have an exhaust brake? Our drums are still like brand new as per yearly PA inspection. We have 33,000 on the MH.

[jcwhitty]

Yes, and it is used as much as possible....and your pads?

[Gary RVRoamer]

Rarely will a motorhome with any type of engine/exhaust brake need new brakes pads. The Freightliner guys at RV shows/rallys have been quoted as saying they have never seen a diesel RV need brakes. They don't get that many miles and the engine brake handles most of the braking anyway. Your brakes are more likely to suffer from glazing from lack of use and Freightliner recommends that you intentionally brake fairly hard from time to time to keep the shoes in good shape.

[jcwhitty]

Thanks all.

[Mike Canter]

If they are disc brakes then the most important thing for longevity is to use special grease on the caliper slides. Failure to do this will result in the pads not fully releasing and then the pads will start wearing or totally locking up and smoking. The books all say you should do this every year. I use a very good synthetic grease just for calipers and I do it every two years. The other thing for anyone that has hydraulic brakes or air over hydraulics is to flush the brake fluid at least once every two years or the pistons in the calipers will rust of you get a master cylinder failure because of the crud that builds up from moisture. I replaced by pads at 85,000 miles. They still had wear left on them but I had everything apart because of something else so I did it at that time.