How long did your 'rear' brake shoes last-before you replaced them

The rear brakes started squealing a little on my 2009 when I had around 210K miles. My Gen 2 had rear drums, rather than disc brakes.

For your reference, most of the car miles were my wife's driving to her job in a rural school about 50 miles outside of town - a little city, but mostly highway miles. We weren't the original owners, so the first 60K miles were who knows what. I think it was in western Nebraska. It's a small city here, so there are not a lot of hard braking stops like there would be if we were in a big city doing nothing but stop and go. When I visit relatives in larger cities, I find that the yellow lights are much shorter there, leading to me not being able to take advantage of the regenerative braking.

When I pulled off the brake drum, there was plenty of pad left. From the wear alone, the car could probably have done about twice that many miles. The front brakes showed little wear as well. However, the dust in the driver's side rear brakes appeared to be a little moist as compared to the passenger's side, leading me to believe that I had a minor brake fluid seeping on the driver's side. The brake dust had also started to clump up so it didn't fall out of the slot at the bottom, so along with the brake fluid, it had also built up more clumped-up dust circulating around in the drum. At least that's what appeared to be happening to me.

Even though there was plenty of pad left, I replaced the drums, shoes, and slave cylinders. The squealing went away, and I picked up a little gas mileage too. The extra gas mileage leads me to believe that there's value in pulling the brake drum off at some regular interval and dumping out any accumulated dust that isn't falling through the slot at the bottom.

 

regular inspections and type of driving is the key. Since danno is doing mostly highway miles, he would be a outlier vs someone driving steep city streets like San Francisco. You need to check the inner pads for wear, that's where the piston is. The caliber slide pins tend to seize-up when neglected causing excessive wear in the piston sided of the caliber.
Bottom line, you can't just look through the wheel and say that your good, because you only looking at the outer pad - the one that isn't being used because the pins are seized.

Hope this helps....

 

mine lasted the whole time i had all three prius

 

i only had them for less than 100k, but the first one (2004) went to a neighbor, and he gad it close to 200k with no rear shoes and now major repairs.
2008 went to our daughter, and she had it to 16o+ with no shoes, and that was in vermont snow and salt.
third was gen 3 with rear discs

 

Current gen3 Prius v with 315,000 miles has all four original rotors, calipers and front pads. Rear pads with good thickness were swapped at 250,000 since we went in to replace one noisy wheel hub. The rear parking brake shoes remain original.

Its all about braking technique.

 

Drum brake shoes tend to last donkey's years; never had to replace them.

And thank God for that; struggling with disassembly/reassembly, is tough, especially for a green DIY'r without the experience or proper tools. About all I did with ours was to remove the spring clips that hold the shoes tightly against the backing plate, pry the shoes forward and apply small dabs of grease at the 3 contact points. (Being super careful to avoid getting grease on the shoe friction material).

Even just getting those clips back on is a struggle. Blow the dust out too; try not to breath it.

 

The right tool makes it easy. Along with a pic to get them back right. The real issue is if the shoes are wedged into the drum. On a v the rear has disk brakes and drum parking brake. In my case almost never used but it has to come apart for the rear hub.

 

Yes, rear brake shoes do last a long time. I usually do a through tear-down/inspection when I need to replace the front pads for the second time. Unless something wonky is happening in the rear end that justifies an inspection. Otherwise I just spin the wheel and check adjustment. Lots of people ignore the rear drum brakes. I usually find them engaging late; part of the reason they last so much longer and increases the car's stopping distances.

Non-professional drum brake tools are cheap; I'd spend the $15 to make the job go faster. Also got a drum/shoe measuring tool, so I can preadjust the shoes and just slap the drum back on. I don't think I've touch that in the last decade.
Drum Brake Spring Pliers Kit, 3 Piece

 

Unfortunately, my rear drums lasted only 195,000 miles. I am sure I had at least 30,000 miles left but my VA State inspector wanted to find something to reject the car.

 

From your link:


the top is to pull spring hook ends off and on their hook points?

bottom one I can see being used to press-and-rotate the shoe hold-down spring clips. Is that its main purpose?

kinda stumped on the middle one. It could be used to rotate the star-wheel? Or pry brake shoes away from backing plate? Other?

 

Yep, top is a brake return spring tool. Only really worked on older US makes - only some of the time. The "point" is supposed to fit in the rivet hole on the shoe lining.

Middle is a brake "spoon". Used to reach through a slot in the backing plate (or on the drum) and rotate the starwheel adjuster. Again that one is "generic" and sort of worked on old US designs. (I have a number of different spoons with crazy bends and offsets for different cars).

Bottom is to compress and twist the shoe hold down spring for removal or installation. Most used the big end, a few needed the small end.

I've got a drawer full of specialized brake tools. Drum brakes generally kind of suck performance-wise, and I really don't like doing them. However, for the application (rear brakes on a small car), they do not have the rust problems that I see everyday on disc brake systems.

I did the rears on my 2006 at around 215k - only because the parking brake cables had rusted and seized. Since it had to come apart for that, it got new shoes and cylinders. (the other reason I hate drums is that old school wheel cylinders leak all the damn time).

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