Generally in any vehicle the braking and steering are very significant.

As we are going to manufacture an off road terrain vehicle . it is necessary for us to take all the prevailing conditions over there into consideration . the track is full of bumps and turnings and we have many events like hillclimbing etc., by taking these points into consideration and to increase the brake efficiency we decided to use 4 disc brakes instead of 2 disc and 2 drum

The points which help us in chosing 4 disc brakes instead of two are: In drum brakes we observe that the brake shoes are inserted in a drum

But in disc there are brake pads which are operated by hydraulic pressure .they are not enclosed in a drum like the drum brakes .so when the vehicle moves in the damp conditions the water which gets into contact with the brakes gets slung away from the brakes thereby providing a good breaking efficiency.

The disc brakes are 30 – 40% lighter than the drum brakes . our main objective is to reduce the unsprung weight ( weight of unspinged components like wheels , tyres etc..,). By reducing the weight of these components we can have good road – tire contact . obviously when the road- tire contact increases we can have good steering control and there will be a good rebound over the bumps or any elevated surfaces.

And by using the disc brakes the stopping distances are reduced to approximately 40%

And the endurance test is going to be for 3hrs and there are many static and dynamic events . as it is rather a long duration test I feel that lots amount of heat is going to get generated . if we use a drum brake the heat dissipated is less and it reduces the braking efficiency and if the brake fluid has low boiling point then it surely is going to cause a problem. So disc are preferred over drum because of its heat dissipating tendency

The drum has almost 40 parts and in order to check the wear and tear you got to lift the wheel by wheel jack .while in the disc brake we have the half the number of parts and in order to inspect it we need not lift the axle . during the baja event if we face any problem it becomes difficult for us to lift the wheel as limited no of people are allowed there and it is very heavy.

All the stopping is in a straight line . when we use drum there is a chance of vehicle pulling to one side. I think we can over come this problem by using disc brakes

And also the tire life can be increased because the heat generated to friction is dissipated quickly.

I feel that using of disc meet our requirements and helps to increase the braking efficieny. All the above mentioned advantages are going to have an edge over the disc brakes higher cost.