Getting back to brakes for a second. In my interview with Bendix’s Gary Ganaway, he made what I thought was a pretty decent point about the evolution of the braking system. Today’s heavy truck brakes are better than they’ve ever been, and maybe ever will be. But they also come with a new set of demands, including the need to reline with the appropriate friction material.

Think of the new reduced stopping distance (RSD) brakes like a high-end luxury car. You’re going to enjoy better performance out of it, but you also have to fill it with premium gas and use high-quality replacement parts in order to ensure continued high performance through the life of the product. The same could be said for today’s high-performance RSD brakes. But Gary put it more eloquently. Over to you, Gary….

“As the technology with brakes has evolved, they’re becoming a lot more sensitive to the inputs; things like bushings, lubrication and the right friction material,” Gary explained. “So, a cautionary note is, because we’ve really tightened up the tolerances and performance of the brake and what it does, we’ve made it much more sophisticated and we’ve lost a bit of freedom in terms of being able to throw whatever we want at it in terms of serviced parts.”