Yeah, thanks. How often do you need to change drum brakes? And change what, exactly? Sorry if stupid question, I don't know anything about them; do they use pads like discs?
Might consider googling drum brake to get a general idea of what's in there.....those of us 'old dudes' that come from the all drum brake era, consider the setup rather simple.
There are two shoes in each drum.....depending on the design, there are primary (leading) and secondary (following) shoes.
The Cruze design uses a fixed pivot so the shoes are the same, primary or secondary position.
If cleaned of accumulated brake dust and manually adjusted every other tire rotation, you will likely exceed 100 to 150k miles before replacement is required......so, depending on your driving style, one set of rears to every second or third set of pads.
Drum brakes get a bad rap primarily from folks that don't (won't) purchass and use spring removal/installation tools designed for the job.
Realities are, a serviceman familiar with drums can perform replacement service in about a third of the time it takes to perform a proper disc pad replacement.
Proper, in the case of discs, means, cleaning, lubricating, or replacement of, the various caliper slides and guide pins as opposed to the 'slap em on and ship it' pad replacement process frequently used by the driveway service crowd.
In most cases, fileing or sanding of a rust ridge that develops on the outer edge of a drum is called for but as long as the drum has not experienced metal to metal contact by running the brakes so long the friction material wore off the shoes, there is no machining required.
Bottom line.....drum rear brakes, serviced in a timely manner, will often easily exceed the mileage the first owner, and possibly the second owner, has the car.
Rob