I agree with the complaints about the self-adjusters not working as well as they were supposed to. The VWs I drove didn’t even have self-adjusters, and those brakes needed adjusting often. Anyway, the complaints about drum brakes not working after driving through water are real. Heat fade in daily driving, not so much.
I have never experienced heat fade but know others who have on long downgrades. To be honest I have always kind of doubted it. I suspect it comes from the brakes wearing excessively from the heat and not having a chance to readjust.
Go through a deep puddle and find you have no breaks for a few minutes and those of you who think that drum breaks are good enough might have a different opinion. What you could do was drive continuously (and very slow) with the breaks on until friction dries them out.
Are you talking cars with drums on the front? As someone said upthread, I’m pretty sure you could remove the rear brakes from a Corolla and most people wouldn’t notice.
Nowadays, to have drum brakes front and rear would indeed be an unacceptable throwback to, if not the Fred Flinstone era, that of Pebbles and Bamm Bamm. But front disc/rear drum designs work quite well, and overall are as satisfactory for passenger cars and light trucks as four-wheel disc systems.
There are pluses and minuses to either set-up, which pretty much balance out. One significant plus for drum brakes is that they lend themselves readily to an efficient and simple parking brake. Disc-centric parking brakes are much more prone to poor operation and complicated adjustment/repair procedures. In fact, the modern trend for four-wheel disc brakes has been to design the rotors to double as drums, with a drum-type parking brake inside.
Old-style drum brake self-adjusters were indeed prone to poor operation, but most modern designs are reliable and don’t give trouble.
I agree that those who blanketly disparage rear drums in modern vehicles are overly impressed with their concept of advanced technology and underinformed about the realities of modern drum brake designs.
The problem with drum brakes certainly wasn’t raw braking power. The tires are the limiting factor in how much braking force you can use, and drum brakes were great at reaching that maximum and locking up the wheels. Which, in my experience, was the big problem with drums in normal around-town driving: they were really grabby and tended to lock up at a drop of a hat. Disc brakes are way better at applying smooth consistent braking force in situations that don’t call for total “anchor over the side” full power braking.
Modern cars with drum brakes still have disc up front and those do 75% of all the braking. They work just fine for stopping unless you’re going 125 mph. Then you will discover whether or not the brake pads are big enough.
What helps greatly with braking is anti-lock systems because they allow better control in situations that require swerving. Usually cars with anti-lock systems have 4 wheel disc systems although I’ve seen them on disc/drum trucks.