Have you ever felt your car's brakes, though in good order, are uninspiring or even confidence killing? Does your brake pedal have long travel before much happens? I have a fix!

On a very slight slope or at almost standstill, pull your handbrake on one click and check your car is still free to roll. Try another click. One more? If it's still free to roll, go for a drive and see if your brake pedal feels better. This is because the rear brake drums are out of adjustment

The Sirion and YRV, and probably other models have automatic adjusters to take up slack as the brake shoes wear. The problem is they're not very good at their job. There's unavoidable slop in the cheap mechanism. You pulling on the handbrake a click or two is adding temporary adjustment. I decided to investigate...

Between my friends and I, we've had five Daihatsus and they all have the same problem. Here's the fix: Assuming your car is free to roll with three clicks on the handbrake, carry-out the following:

Slacken the rear wheel nuts
Under the rear damper, raise the wheel off the ground slightly with a jack.
Chock front wheels or select 1st gear.
Release handbrake.
Remove rear wheel and drum.
You will see the following. This is my 2006 Sirion but the other models are similar.

Full size here

The adjuster is top left. I've marked mine with green pen. They ratchet-up one click to take-up excessive freeplay as the shoes wear. We are going to help them do that by pressing carefully on the brake pedal.

First, mark the correlation between the two halves of the ratchet mechanism with a pen or scribe. This is so you can, if required, return to this position.
Have a friend operate the brake pedal. Slowly push it down. Not much will happen for a bit as the slack which causes the problem is taken-up.
All of a sudden you'll notice the teeth of the ratchet mechanism start to ride over themselves. Be careful here! This part happens quickly.
Count ONE click and have your friend release the pedal.
Check to see if the drum is easy to refit. If it's really free, remove it and adjust ONE MORE click. Check the drum fitment again.
In the past, I've found three clicks required on the handbrake equals two clicks on BOTH adjusters.
The drum should be free to spin by hand when fully relocated. A little noise where it rubs slightly is fine. If it's stiff, back-off the adjuster levering with a screwdriver.
Refit the drum and wheel and carry-out the same adjustment to the other drum.

I've found this to be necessary to carry-out every 6 months to maintain a great-feeling brake pedal. It's caused by cheap down-to-budget pressed-out nasty components. This adjustment takes 20 minutes once you're good at it, the same as a car with traditional manual adjusters.

Cheers, Ferg