Don't feel too responsible for your vans braking performance. These trucks are notorious for having bad brakes. The rears are virtually always out of adjustment so of course they last forever. Naturally you can manually adjust them but this would have to be done fairly frequently. This puts the load on the undersized front disks. You can buy better pads and rotors but they're still basically car brakes in a truck.

They changed the E-150 to 4 wheel disk a while back and yes the 3/4 ton and 1 ton have different brakes.

 

There is an "E150" passenger van aka Club Wagon, with 8 lug wheels, 80 lb tires, 8520 lb GVW, etc. GM still makes the traditional lighter-duty van with 5 or 6-lug wheels and GVW around 7000 lbs like the old E150. I suspect that a great many of the "luxury" van converters will cut down on using Ford vans because they will have the bone-crushing ride of the 250 type vans.

But with the basic chassis weight of a big van, and "only" a 7000 lb GVW, a lot of the fat raised-roof conversions with gigantic power leather seats and couches, DVD systems, and crap like that, were probably coming in at 5600-5700 lbs, leaving very little weight for passengers and cargo (Put 7 200-lb guys in the van, and you're done or even overweight already....no cargo capacity).

My guess is that if Ford beefed up the brakes, added sheetmetal for the new front end, maybe added stability control, on the old 150, they would have gained another 100 lbs or more, and that would have been pushing the limit of any passenger-type tires.

Edit--looks like they made this change in 2007; I really hadn't been paying attention, but the new (ugly) looks of the 2008 got me to grab a brochure to see what else might have changed in the redesign.

George

 

Well, I do think the front brakes could be more robust. But those measures will help their longevity.

I too was using Autozone rotors because they were cheap (China). By the end of the season, 25,000 mostly interstate towing miles, the fronts were trash. By this time I had transitioned from buying cheap parts at Autozone to buying more expensive, but higher quality parts, at CarQuest. I friend and fellow racer who owned a general repair shop bought lots of stuff from CarQuest and raved about their ceramic pads, suggested I try them.

I forget what I paid for the rotors but it wasn't a big difference. The ceramic pads do run cooler, are less resistant to heat, stop way better and last longer. Its a win-win all the way around. Even if I paid double the price for pads and rotors, they are lasting four times longer.

I should note that my Clubwagon has nearly 270,000 miles, mostly towing my racecar. I have owned the van since '96 when it was less than a year old. I have replaced more sets of rotors and pads than I can remember. The van is about 5100 lbs empty, it hauls about 800 lbs of equipment and another 500 lbs of people and luggage. Then tows a racecar/trailer combo that's about 4000 lbs. I go accross the scales, with a full tank of fuel, at about 11,000 lbs. So the brakes get a BIG workout.

 

I'm no mechanic, but I have tried to convince many folks with front brake problems (premature pad wear/rotor wear/warping) that their trouble is with their rear brakes...namely not being properly adjusted or adjustment not maintained (automatic adjusters work but are never forced to draw up the slack and adj. the shoes).

A side story: Although I had driven trucks for years, one employer made me go through their driving school. They had been involved in a study with some gov't agency (NHTSA or NTSB?) and Navistar studying brake wear, etc.

The recommendation coming out of that study, which the company recommended to all its drivers (some 12,000 of us) was to use a firm pressure on the brake pedal to bring vehicle speed below the target speed, then release, allowing speed to increase 3-5 mph above target speed, then reapply firmly, repeating to the bottom of the grade. Now, how does this apply to us here?

Here's how: they found that light pressure on the brakes, that is, only enough to control the vehicle speed could sometimes apply only some of the pads or shoes, using those few to do all the work while leaving others just short of contact with the drum or rotor. Continually doing this causes overheating of the drum/rotor, the pad/shoe and can cause glaze or warping or premature wear.

So, with rear brakes (drum style) only a little out of adjustment and a "as little as necessary" braking style, the driver might be causing as much of the problem as the machine is causing.

Just some thoughts.

 

I agree for the most part.

The technique you mentioned (and the results) is not that far removed from the technique that professional racing drivers use to ensure that they have functioning brakes at the end of the longest straights. The technique is; most road racing circuits have at some point a long straight with a turn at the end tight enough to require significant braking. As the driver nears the braking zone for the turn, while still holding the throttle down, he reaches over with his left foot to "test" the brakes to ensure they are working properly. The reason for doing this is, if the brakes have failed, missing the turn at over 150 mph could easily be fatal.

This "test" does two things: It verifies the brakes are working AND pushes the pads are pushed up close to the rotors to ensure full and timely application when the driver does apply the brakes at the end of the straight.

In all of the years I have been racing, driving, building and preparing racing cars, I can tell you that drivers that don't employ this technique can easily be identified by the way the brake pads are worn.