Oh wow you don't even want to know. I bought the beast in January with 143k miles and now I have 160k on it. 17k miles in 10 months. I spend a lot of time in my truck it's my life. Probably 75% of that is around town with a good chunk of that in my mountain town. On my Saab the year before I got the Blazer I put 35k miles on that car.

 

Mountains mean hills, usually, that'll eat brakes a lot faster...

After driving around for a few days, how's the tension and feel on the back brakes if you try spinning the drums by hand, or removing them?

 

Yeah mountains suck. I burned through brakes on my Jeeps as well. I took the back wheels off again and the drums slipped off way easy. So I pushed the shoes together and then spread them out with the auto-adjust thing. It helped minorly but still doesn't feel 100%. So I will drive it a couple more days and check it again. Kind of frustrating I have never had good luck with those auto tensioners.

 

It could be the spring on the tensioners is worn out...

 

it has to be the spring on the tensioner because after a few days the drum came off really easily yea something is worn out there and i agree with drperry about the spring

 

You have to make sure that the adjuster is working properly and this doesn't just mean that when you turn the adjuster it tightens up the shoes in the drum. You have to make sure that when the brakes are actuated normally that the adjuster arm is actually doing what it is supposed to with the adjuster.