Over the past few years, its seems like more and more regular cars have multi-piston brake calipers like the new subaru impreza. 10 or 15years ago, even performance oriented cars didn’t frequently have those until you went pretty far up market. And it doesn’t seem like it is for marketing, since it isn’t often advertised. If single piston calipers were good for an audi s4, why does a new subaru impreza need multi-piston calipers? have there been developments in cost or technology?
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Like everything…as better technology becomes cheaper it becomes more common.
Heavier bigger cars. Engines with more power. My 16 Colorado is just as big and has just as much HP and more torque than my mom’s 99 f150. It can tow just as much as well.
Lots of good answers already, one more is the increase in the size of wheels. Its hard to fit a multi-piston caliper inside a 93 civic’s 14” wheels
Cars got heavier and cars share more parts. Really those two big things I think have led to the increase
weight
Funnily enough my 15 year old Subaru Outback has dual piston calipers
If single piston calipers were good for an audi s4,
And a 0-60pmh time of 8+ second was also good enough for a Porsche 924.
Because fixed calipers are suhweet
Why stop advancing anything? Why even make new cars at all? Let’s just sell the old ones. Why even go to work? Since we put that aside as unreasonable. People need a thing to do. And at car companies that’s tinkering with stuff
it was more of a is the increased complexity worth it or is it a spec sheet arms race?
More power and more weight.
plus customers have got used to car’s having really good brakes now. Take a spin in a 15 year old car and hit the brakes, you’ll be shocked how rubbish they are!
Mutli piston calipers have better performance than a single piston caliper through more pad area and more even clamping force. Cars are faster and heavier than they were 10-15 years ago. Technology is better and costs are cheaper as well.
My motorcycle has 4 front brake pistons on 1 wheel. Cars could step it up, i think its far to say.
Most stuff was already written but this: Modern Cars brake an awful lot by themselve. Early Cruise Control let you go above your set speed if engine braking wasnt enough, now the Car constantly brakes whenever it reaches a Threshold. Lane assist brakes single discs to keep the Car where it should be, same for torque vectoring.
Most often the rear brakes are used for these systems, so pads in the back get replaced way more than the front, where the big braking power is happening.
I think a lot of it is marketing and this point. Oh, the competitor has 4 pistons? We’ve got six
bladespistons!This is exactly it. Most people just think bigger brake = better, but 99% of people aren’t tracking their cars and it doesn’t make a lick of difference in any standard driving situation (just about the only time it does matter is towing a heavy trailer down a big hill)
My car from 1969 has 4 wheel, 4-piston brakes and it always seems anachronistic as heck considering I had a rental Versa with rear drums a few years ago.