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Brake Pads Wear According to the Dealer

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by hhanna04, Jun 28, 2015.

  1. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Repair Manual says 10 mm for front, 9.5 for rear.
     
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    they're 10, but if you eyeball them, they look like 12.
     
  3. RRxing

    RRxing Senior Member

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    What Mendel said - These are the NEW pad dimensions. Don't know where 12mm came from...
     
  4. spiff72

    spiff72 Member

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    I would pay closer attention to the rear pads/calipers. There have been some issues where the rear calipers can "stick" and cause uneven wear.

    I replaced my rear pads and re-lubed the slide pins at about 50k miles. I was suspicious of them because every once in a while when I would park it the garage I could smell something "hot" - and I noticed the driver's side rear wheel was abnormally warm. When I pulled the pads, one of the pads (can't remember if it was the outer or inner) had very bad uneven wear between the outer edge and inner edge - the inner edge of the pad was about 3mm thinner than the outer edge.

    I will probably need to pull them again soon and re-check for issues. I haven't noticed hot wheels or smells since then, and I have put another 2k-3k miles on it since then.
     
  5. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Maybe just seemed like a good number? :whistle:
     
  6. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Everything in your description points to misalignment of the inner pad backing plate pin and the cross pattern on the piston face. PIn should be between the cross pattern spokes, per the red dot:


    Capture.JPG

    You need to rotate the piston (clockwise is best I think, screws it in) to get the piston pattern per above, assemble everything, then do multiple depressions of the brake pedal, to ensure the pin is solidly seated. Take for a test drive, gently applying brakes, and when parking only then apply the parking brake. Applying the parking brake will attempt to rotate the piston, and you don't want that to happen, the pin is supposed to stop it. But if not well seated, or not aligned properly to begin with, the pin rides up on spoke pattern, and you get your symptoms.

    I had just these issues btw.
     
  7. spiff72

    spiff72 Member

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    Thanks! When I reassembled, I made sure that it was seated correctly, and I pumped the brake pedal several times after I got everything back together (and before hooking up the 12v battery again). I could hear a faint clicking sound as I did this. I read up on all this before I started the job - it was probably one of your posts that pointed this out! Now that I think about it,I may not have even used the parking brake since I did this brake job.

    I had never done anything with the brakes on this car prior to this, and as far as I know, no one else had either - so if this was misaligned it was done so at the factory.
     
  8. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    I heard that clicking sound, for the first 3 or 4 pedal depressions, after my first rear brake reassembly. Then it quieted down. I'm thinking that was the auto-adjuster. But I wasn't overly diligent with the seating procedure, or something went wrong: several months later I noticed pronounced scoring on outer face of one of the rears.

    Opened them up, and found one inner pad in particular only making about 50% contact, and a corresponding rusty zone on inside face of disc. The pins looked chewed up, that side the worst, the other side not that good either. Ended up getting new pads/shims, and did very careful install. Appears to have worked.
     
  9. Greg_M

    Greg_M Member

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    If you drive a Prius like you should then you'll most likely never have to touch the brakes. If you drive a Prius like any other car then you might have to change your pads after 150k-200k, maybe.
     
  10. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    The Prius drivetrain works magic on the rate of wear of pads and rotors.

    The magic doesn't extend to other important factors like lubrication of slide pins. It is still best to attend to that stuff every few tire rotations anyway, just so you don't end up feeling like a doof for having to change pads and replace or machine rotors tens of thousands of miles earlier than you thought you would have to. It's quick to do.

    -Chap
     
  11. Greg_M

    Greg_M Member

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    Lube slide pins every 15k miles or just perform a complete brake job at 200k plus miles? Hmm, I think I'll just wait since it's entirely possible that I'll never have to touch the brakes for as long as I own the car. I was talking to a prius mechanic this week and he told me he knows of some taxis that have north of 300k miles and are still on the original brakes. As a matter of fact he said he's done nothing but the recommended service on them with no major repairs needed!

    I'm most likely keeping my Sprinter for more than 300k miles but I doubt I'll ever keep a prius that long.

    I'm not knocking anyone who wants to perform all the preventative maintenance that they can think of.
     
  12. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Ok, but it also seems you're not reading these forums, where you'd find plenty of evidence that the "I'll never touch these till I project the pads are worn out" generally leads to an earlier and more expensive brake job than expected, replacing pads that'll have 100,000 miles left (on one side anyway) and rotors that would otherwise have been just fine, which can end up feeling a bit wasteful.

    Honestly, getting a visual glance at the pin boots and checking how easily the caliper slides by hand is not a high preventive price to pay when the wheels are off for something else anyway. How often to actually disassemble and lube the pins depends on how often they turn out to need it.

    -Chap
     
  13. Greg_M

    Greg_M Member

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    If I rotated the tires myself then I could see doing that. I have the place I buy my tires rotate them so it would be much more time consuming for me to check something that I'll probably never have a problem with.

    My wife and I are VERY easy on the brakes. I anticipate all stops and never brake hard. Our first Prius, which might sell as early as today, has almost 185k on it with the original brakes that still look very good.

    I happened to have the tires off of our 2 plug-ins this past week and the brakes on the advanced (48k miles) look like new while the brakes on the base model look ok at best. If we end up keeping the base plug-in I'll probably have those brakes serviced at some point in the near future. They have some uneven wear and some groves in the rotors. That car has 84k on it and was driven in the DC area so it was exposed to it's fair share of salt and most likely harder braking. If I do have those brakes serviced I'll most likely bite the bullet and have new rotors and pads installed as well as anything else that might look worn. Then I'll likely never have to touch them again.
     
  14. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    Regardless how reliable a vehicle is, there are three kinds of car owners. Those that maintain them, those that fix them after they break because they don't, won't or can't maintain them and those that buy a new one every couple of years because they don't, won't or can't do either.
     
  15. Greg_M

    Greg_M Member

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    There's a difference between maintaining and becoming obsessive. The Prius has a proven record of being a reliable car. It's very common to go 200k on just basic preventative maintenance with no problems what so ever. That's 10 years, not a couple of years.
     
  16. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Part of the "preventative maintenance" is regular brake inspections, as outlined in the schedule. Part of the issue here, maybe: Toyota gives precious little description, as to what should be done.

    With all the talk regarding leaving the brakes alone until they start exhibiting symptoms:

    Brake failure is not something I want to "discover".
     
  17. Greg_M

    Greg_M Member

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    Every single "brake failure" I've ever had was the squeal from the tab on the pads against the rotor.

    Any ways, I'm searching for a list of maintenance items that should be done and at what intervals. My opinion is that the list in the owners manual isn't sufficient and/or descriptive enough to use. There are some things I'll do myself and some that I'll have an independent repair place do. I don't go to dealerships.

    I would like to find a list of some kind from this site since I know that it will error on the side of obsessive. Then I can look at the reasoning behind each suggested maintenance item and make my own decision on what to do and what not to do.

    Is there such a list here?
     
  18. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    2004 doesn't have rear disc brakes, it's not an issue.
     
  19. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    Greg, would it make any difference...that is, outside the context of just discussion. You already admitted..."Every single "brake failure" I've ever had was the squeal from the tab on the pads against the rotor", which implies your more the fix it after it breaks type owner.
     
    #39 frodoz737, Jul 4, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2015
  20. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    I posted this, a spreadsheet summary of the Toyota USA (event by event) schedule. It's third gen, unfortunately. There's no interpretation, it's just trying to summarize what's in the booklet:

    2010 Prius Maintenance Schedule (US) | PriusChat