San Diego Mechanic recommendations - for breaks

Brakes on a Prius are not very different from any other car. Any pro can do it

 

Not t a pro here, guess im out

 

Pretty much on brakes on a Prius a 16-year-old with a good vibe and a like of automobiles could do this job I have them put my daughter on one yet maybe one of these days The only thing with the Prius is you need to make sure the remote is in the house or 20 ft from the car and there's no kids toddlers parents or anybody that's going to pick it up and bring it out to the car in the middle of the brake job. Crack your zerk fittings on each caliper one at a time squeeze the fluid out with the one hand on your pliers and clothes zerk before you let go of the pliers so you don't let air get sucked up into zerk bleed fitting. Other than that it's going to be a pretty quiet operation and day

 

Then do it.

 

They are no different...

 

Non pros too . Weekend warrior all that . Even cheap no name tools will get it.

 

People can mean different things by "brake job", it's kind of like "tune up", this thing people used to do where they'd replace a bunch of stuff all at once.

"Tune ups" have pretty much gone the way of the dodo, in favor of just paying attention to what needs replacing and when, and doing that then.

Ideally, it's kind of the same with brakes. A Prius can go a long, long, long time without ever needing a heap of brake parts replaced all at once. If you keep up with regular inspections of the brakes (Toyota recommends every 6 months/5000 miles, with more thorough inspections every 30,000, I just go over mine every time I rotate tires), you might hardly ever find anything needing replacement, or just a sixteen-dollar fitting kit every few inspections or so. Last year, I did discover my rear pads and rotors could use replacement, so I did those.

Encouraging posts like "any 16 year old can do it" come from a good place, but it's probably even better to give some guidelines. The best way to say it is probably that a person with reasonable experience doing brake work will not find a Prius to be any special challenge. That's not to understate how much a person with reasonable experience doing brake work has already learned. A 16 year old without that experience will have a lot to learn. But most of that stuff isn't special to a Prius.

Roughly in levels of increasing challenge, we've got:

Level 1. A lot of brake work (simple inspections, replacement of fitting kits, checking or lubing pins, and so on) can be done without opening the hydraulic system at all, not even opening a bleed valve. Therefore, a level 1 job doesn't need any follow-up step like bleeding the brakes.

Level 1½. Even work involving new pads or rotors can be done without opening a bleed valve, though many here would not recommend it. I am one who would rather open the bleeder while shoving the piston back, so the old yucky fluid in the cylinder gets squeezed out, instead of being forced backwards into the $$$$ hardware under the hood. Then at the end of the job, i just pour an equal amount of fresh brake fluid into the bottle up front.

If that squeezing is done carefully, you avoid letting any air in through the bleed valve while it is open. (Part of the trick is to have a tube already attached to the valve, and the tube looped upward from the valve, and some brake fluid already in the tube. If you do a level 1½ job right, you still don't need a bleeding step at the end.

Level 2. Anything that requires opening or replacing a caliper at a wheel, or parts of the brake line right near the wheel end. Bleeding will be needed after, but if you are very careful and the only air to be bled is right there at the wheel end and none has traveled up the line toward the underhood parts, you can get by with some folk procedures for bleeding that don't require a scan tool. Or if you have a scan tool with bleeding features, of course you can live in luxury and use that.

One caution: if you aren't watching the level in the bottle up front and it hits bottom and sucks air while you're bleeding, a level 2 job becomes level 3.

Level 3. Any job that involves changing the brake parts up under the hood, or the lines close to them, or gets air into those parts, will have to be followed by the full bleed procedure kicked off by a capable scan tool. People who think they have bled the system any other way have not done so; there are multiple fluid circuits inside the brake actuator and some of them are valved off except when the computerized bleed procedure makes them open. A system can seem to be bled and working, until the car is later in a situation where the unbled circuits have to work. Not good.

So before starting a level 3 job, make sure you (or whoever will be doing the job) has a scan tool that is able to kick off the necessary bleed procedure. Beyond that, there's nothing especially hard or different or weird about the Prius brakes.

Oh, there is this one more thing, though.

Before doing any of this, the next time you get home from a drive and turn the car off, don't get out right away. Take the earbuds out and listen to the car. If you have a watch or stopwatch, listen especially 90 seconds after you have turned the car off.

Hear that click squish click click squish click?

That was the brake system self test. A Gen 3 will do that test 90 seconds after being turned off. It has nothing to do with whether the fob is nearby or you have toddlers or parents around. You could be dropped in the desert miles from the fob and after the apocalypse, and 90 seconds after being turned off, the Gen 3 will do that self test.

So be aware of that. A lot of the time it won't be an issue, because you need longer than that after turning the car off to get it jacked up and start working on the brakes. But sometimes we don't do everything according to plan.

If that self test ever happens during your brake work while you have the calipers off the rotors, it will pop the caliper pistons out, make a mess of brake fluid, and convert the job instantly to Level 3. If your hands are in the caliper at that moment, you will return from surgery with a level 3 brake job still to complete.

So don't let that happen. A lot of folks, to eliminate every chance, will disconnect the 12 volt battery so the car is all dead for the job. I usually don't bother with that, but I always listen for the test to have happened before I turn any wrenches.

 

Yeah that’s me; if the brake system decides to to that thing when caliper’s off the rotor, it can ruin your day. And before reconnecting, press brake pedal multiple times, to remove excess travel (which can trigger a code).