Quick brake help!

Make REAL sure the rear inner pad's pin on backing plate is located, and firmly locked, between the spokes on the rear caliper piston faces. Do this before any application of the parking brake.

This is a poor design by Toyota, too easy to screw up.

These are the pins:



Here's the piston face, with red dot where you want the pin to be. As you can see it's currently not correctly oriented:



I had uneven wear, about 50 percent of the inner face of rotor's area rusted up, scoring, a real mess. I stuck with the original rotors, just removed and cleaned them up with steel wool. With new pads, and careful alignment of the pin, the system basically healed itself, the rotors look great now.

For the first few km's after fix they sounded like crap, gradually smoothed out. The pad and shim parts I used were:

PAD SET, BRAKE
P/N: 04466-76012

SHIM KIT, BRAKE
P/N: 04946-47070

The shim kit is not do-or-die, but it's nice/shiny/new, not that much $.

 

The first time I put the rear back together I neglected to align the pins, and had terrific drag.

With proper pin alignment there will still be slight drag, due to the parking brake mechanism. It keeps the brakes right on the edge of gripping, auto-adjusts. But it'll be slight.

 

You've got to rotate the piston, screw it in slightly (clockwise), to get the GAP between spokes at 12 oclock, 6 oclock. Then put everything back together (pin between spokes), and push the brake pedal multiple times, to get the pin FIRMLY LOCKED in between the spokes.

The first time you apply parking brake it'll try to turn the piston. One of two things can happen:

1. The pin will lock in between the piston spokes, and the screw inside the piston will cause the piston's internal screw to screw out, slightly. This is good, basically the auto-adjust of the parking brake mechanism.

2. The misaligned or not firmly locked pin will allow the whole piston to rotate. The pin will ride up on the piston spoke, skewing the whole pad, and resulting in uneven wear (only about 50% pad to caliper contact) and lotsa drag.

 

Is the car still up? Did you ask the guys about that pin, it's alignment?

Our backs are not quite free-spinning, but if' I've got it raised, parking brake off obviously, and give it a spin it'll go one or two revs pretty easy. If it's fighting, strong resistance, that points to the dang pin, riding up completely or partially onto a spoke, skewing the pad.

A design that's so easy to screw up is a poor design, my 2 cents. Until owners understand the mechanics of how that rear parking brake mechanism works, this'll continue to happen. I suspect even some dealerships don't get it.

 

This is how one of our inner face of rotors looked, after a protracted time with mis-aligned pin:


(note the rusty zone, little or no contact)

And this was the condition of that pin on the backing plate:

 

Over $1000 to refurb rear brakes. I do not know. My new Toyota brake pad set and shims was $130.43. The rotors, while looking knackered at the time, look absolutely fine, about 6 months later now.

My main concern is that you're at Midas, that on their bill it says "ceramic pad" as a description of the pads. I wonder if they even have the proper pin. And if the mechanics are going to do the pin alignment.

Taking my approach, ie new pads and just clean up of rotors, the charge should not be a lot over $200, under $300 for sure.

In your shoes, I'd be inclined to back out of there, take it to Toyota dealership. And feel them out, ask questions going in.

 

how many miles on her? did she come from the rust belt?

 

a number of peeps here have had wear on the rear brakes in the rust belt because they don't get much use, and aren't scheduled for regular maintenance and lubrication. all the best!