So my buddy has a 2017 ES, purchased on my recommendation. He just hit 94,000 miles, and said he was about due for front brake pads again. I asked if the rotors had ever been done, and he said they were the originals. "Better do rotors, too." I then asked about the rear brakes, and he said they had not been touched. "Definitely time to look at the rears", I told him. Mine only lasted to 80k, so even with the larger rear brakes on the '17-up models I figured he was on borrowed time.
He brought the car over to my house on Thursday night and we pulled it into my garage to do the brakes at all four corners. I was expecting to find rear brakes that were essentially the same as the ones on the '14-'15 models, just with bigger drums. Turns out they are a completely different design. They are manually adjusted.
Yep, old-skool star adjusters on these! And here I was thinking the brakes on the earlier models with the automatic adjusters were crude. This is what his shoes looked like after 94k with no adjustments. Leading shoe is worn at the bottom, trailing shoe is nearly new top to bottom. Parking brake seemed to work fine.
I suspect Mitsubishi just unceremoniously lifted these rear brakes off of another model. They work, but keep them adjusted!