One thing I didn’t see mentioned yet in this thread is that even if the outside of the wheel is closed by wall of steel and hubcap, the inside is always wide open. Even if those brakes aren’t visible from the outside, they’re fully exposed to the inside. And yet they still work fine.
I remember you now. You’re the guy who kept railing about how they had replaced the tried-and-true Crown Victoria police car for something that was faster, more practical and more reliable.
I feel some of your pain. My daily driver is from 1990. I don’t need 40 airbags, GPS and twice as many cupholders as seats. I don’t need traction control, self-parking or electronics to help me push down the brake pedal. But along with all that crap comes a vehicle that’s been vastly improved in the last 25 years.
What we need is not fewer improvements, but longer option sheets that allow us to buy a car with fewer distracting gee-gaws, less electronics to go bad, and a sticker price that’s a few thousand dollars less.
I bet you bought the Econoline because you can get it in any color you want as long as it’s white.
This. They just look more prominent because the wheels are more cut-out, the calipers are somewhat oversized, and they’re brightly painted.
The front brake calipers on my 05 Dodge Dakota are visible, but the cut-outs in the wheel aren’t so large, the calipers aren’t so relatively big, and they’re a sort of drab dirt/rust/cast iron color, so they don’t look too obvious.
The big shiny rotors are fairly obvious however.
Front disc brakes haven’t changed significantly since they were introduced- they’re just a caliper pinching a rotor between two brake pads.
ahem
My current 2001 Econoline has the dimmer on the blinker. Cruise control buttons are in the steering wheel. Air bags too. It’s pretty modern except no keyfob or factory gps. I’d guess the current models have those features too.
The worst Econoline I ever owned was a 91. :smack: It still had a carburetor. The last two years I owned it were not fun. It had to be started daily or it wouldn’t start. I parked at the airport and went to a conference for 3 days. Got back at 11pm one night and the van wouldn’t start. Taxicab home and a tow to the dealer for the van. The airport is 15 miles outside town. 
I had that carb worked on so many times. I can’t even remember how many tows that van got. Piece of crap.
Thankfully the 2001 is fuel injected. So far its been really reliable. Except for the steering ball joints. They failed at 41,000 and had to be replaced. Mechanic said I should have easily gotten 80,000 before they failed.
Yes!
Which also goes to illustrate how much force the braking system generates on rotors…because the braking system can warp the rotors.
If you want a new Econoline van, you’d better get one soon; it’s scheduled to be retired at the end of the 2013 model year and replaced by the Ford Transit van.
I think that was a Car Talk puzzler once upon a time, so technically I cheated 
cars still have metal bumpers, they just also have a fascia covering it.
Thanks for the heads up. It may be time to replace mine while I still can. My van is still pretty low mileage and I recently spent $1600 on new ball joints, shocks, and tires. I’ll have to think about it.
It’s true that the vans had metal bumpers. A dull gray paint that flaked off within seven years. Both my 91 and 2001 vans had that happen. I had my current van’s front/rear bumpers repainted and clear coated in 2010.
Technically then the answer is “exposed steel bumpers”.
It’s not the braking force itself that warps the rotors, but rather undissipated heat that causes the rotors to warp.
…and in many cases, what’s thought to be warping is actually uneven deposition of pad material on the rotor also because of heat dissapation issues.
Oops…I had a feelign i’d do something like that. I read the thread…thoroughly, i thought. I even did a search for “inside” for good measure.
Apologies to RNATB. :o
Post #4 as well, although it may not have been stated as succinctly.