Inboard brakes - Curiosity

In-board brakes were one of the many enhancements made to GP type cars many years ago. Certain high-end car manufacturers incorporated them more as an image enhancer (I think) than anything else. The drivability of cars like the Jag was not measurably enhanced and I suspect car makers could not really see that their addition improved sales. An expensive not-visible addition was dropped.

Early Jag inboard brakes required dropping the rear crossmember to service. Later versions were only slightly more accessable. Both suffered when the brakes overheated the oil seals on the final drive and oil leaked onto the rotors. The Audi 100LS is the only FWD I recall that had inboard front brakes. Changing pads on cars with auto trans was difficult and oil leaks onto the brakes were common. The layout thwarts cooling air from doing its' job resulting faster wear of the already soft German rotors and the drive axles must be removed to change them. In the few years these cars were on the road (they had many other problems) I never witnessed a broken axle.

The only Jaguar I ever personally considered owning was an XK-E, slightly used in the 1960's. Compared to anything else I had ever driven, this was like a dream...fantastic roadworthiness, fine acceleration,etc.

Then, before I bought, I found that they were typically British of that era.. burned a lot of oil, expensive to work on, stone age electrics,not so very reliable.

I am very interested in what the companies have done in the last few years to make such dramatic improvements in body integrity, driveability, quietness.

We have driven Buicks a lot, and they are fairly comfortable and roadworthy cars, but still with a little objectionable noise, body integrity okay but not good, a slight about of jitter at highway speed. But, compared to earlier Fords I have known (up through 1990 Thunderbirds) , Buick was a jump step better.

(Notice, I do not brag on some of GM's engineering. Some engines, trannies, electrics, etc are terrible.)

I have test driven Toyota Camry and Volks Passat recently and am truly amazed at the improvement over what I am used to.

Perhaps these manufacturers have just taken a lot of care with many small things but the perceived feel, to me, is as if they have made quantum improvements.

Also the Citroen 2CV.

The 2CV has brakes? I thought you just stuck your foot through the hole in the floorboards to stop it?

--scott

So that's what Fred Flintstone drove...

...and the Volkswagen K70. Front wheel drive, inboard disks on front, regular drums on rear wheels. Could be scary in wet weather: I soon learned to dry the rotors with my left foot on the brake pedal after driving through puddles of any size.

-tih

Alfa Romeo Milano's and GTV rear inboard brakes. Inboard brakes are harder to work on than regular ones. I think one reason you don't see that that much is that there is not that much air flowing under the car to cool the brakes. So outboard brakes are preferred.

-------------- Alex