Gen 3 Certified Preowned 33,000 Miles - New Brake Pads?

IMHO.....you would have to beat on a Prius pretty hard to need front brake/pads in 33,000 miles.....

 

Yeah but dealership still might have changed, regardless of "need".

I've already changed rears on ours, due to my earlier screw up.

 

True......

 

The braked pads part doesn't bother me. There are enough dealers out there taking advantage of people that I wouldn't be surprised at all. That being said I'm sure there are plenty of honest ones to, I just haven't found any yet!

If you have the entire VIN umber you can type it in on the Toyota web site and see every service done at Toyota.

Good luck!

 

Seems early, my car is at 137k miles and still has about 3mm left. The manual says to replace pads with 1MM left which is kind of nuts.

 

Not quite. The language is something like "mininum thickness: 1 mm". But common sense should prevail, if you've opened up the brakes and you have only 2~3 mm remaining, I would change them.

I think wear accelerates as the pads thin, and too: the thinner they are, the less mass they have to dissipate heat, and the they may start to lose fragments off the edges.

Maybe think of them like tires: you're not obligated to run them down to the wear bars.

 

Go for second opinion from dolifdernt

Go for 2nd opinion from another mechanic.that doesn't seem right

 

I agree thinner pads dissipate heat worse but I can't think of any normal driving situation where you would get your pads hot enough to boil the fluid and get brake fade in a Prius. I toss my track pads in my BMW's and Porsche's when the pad thickness reaches the backing plate (5mm) but I never drive the Prius aggressively at all.

 

I bought my car at 40k, now it's at 60k, 2013 vehicle.
Dealership says I've got 3mm on the fronts.
Should I replace ?

 

Myself, I would at the next service interval, next time the wheels come off. Not a panic, but neither would I hang about.

 

We sold our 2008 Gen II with 173K miles. The brakes had never been replaced and I was told they were in good condition.

Some people drive with two feet on the pedals. One on the gas pedal and the other on the brake pedal. Someone taught them that way and they can go through brakes very quickly. My dad used to have an automotive repair business and saw this problem all too often.

 

Great info Mendel. My experience is the same. The first 25% of the pad thickness seems to correlate to the first half of the brake life. The last 25% of the pad seems to go way faster. Maybe like 10% of the brake life. That's not scientific, but overall that's the way it's been in my experience; and I bet I've put on enough brake pads to fill the average persons garage.

 

Congrats Martingale! It sounds like your happy and that is what it's really about. The older I get the more I come to realize that.

I had to find a car in a rush last summer due to an idiot driver texting and hitting me from behind. Totaled my car in the middle of relocating for work and buying a new house. I ended up taking a black car as a replacement because the price was right and it fit the bill and budget. I noticed the heat difference immediately. Luckily I was able to wrap up the move and house and start looking around. That's when I found the prius, in white. Now my daughter has to deal with the other car. It's amazing how 16 year olds don't care about that stuff. They just want to drive!

 

You guys described me in my youth. Black paint with a nice sound system and I was in!

These days, I still like a nice stereo- much nicer than what the Prius provides. But a black car under the Vegas sun is too much for me to handle these days.

 

Mine's got the JBL system, and it sounds really good to me. I'm not sure why everyone thinks it sounds so bad. My daughter loves it.

 

I cannot comment as I don't have the JBL. But my assumption was that the upgraded system would have sounded excellent- which is not what others have posted, though.

I can attest that the standard speakers leave a lot to be desired, and I'm not as picky as most. I have some preowned CDT speakers being shipped, I can't wait.