Brake service and warranty question

Did you tell them the brakes are new and replaced by a dealer a year ago?

 

If you want the repairs done for free under maybe some kind of warranty the original people that did the work would have to agree to do it. If you plan on paying for it take it whoever you trust.

 

I had a 135,000 miles on my 2005 and kept asking my independent mechanic is not time for brakes pads. All I got was a chuckle from him as he said you have at least another 30,0000 miles on those pads. So I am thinking your mechanic was just padding the bill. Pardon the pun. Prius only uses the mechanical pads from 7 MPH to bring the car to a complete halt. So either all of your 70,000 miles were city driving or you tended to stop abruptly. The other possibility is a defective master cylinder and ABS system.

 

Could be they screwed up the caliper piston orientation. Being a dealership they shouldn't but it's a real gotcha. The piston needs to be oriented and well seated against the pad thus:



The grey areas are raised spokes, and there's a pin on the back of the pads that must fall in between those spokes. If the piston rotates and a spoke rides up on the pin (when parking brake is applied) you end up with terrifically unbalanced brake application, bevelled wear on the inner brake pad, half the inside face of the rotor rusty from lack of contact, and scoring on the outside face of the rotor.

Feel the rear wheels after a drive, see if they're hot. Also, if you've the wherewithal, chock the front wheels, raise the rear, and (with parking brake released, obviously) try spinning the rear wheels. They should easily spin a revolution or two, with only slight drag.

 

make sure they lubed the caliper pins. they should have shown you what was happening, but if you haven't noticed any issues, they're probably fine.