Scheduled maintenance frequency

You have me thinking: Brake caliper pin lubrication.

Only repair expense of note on our 2010 Gen 3 could probably have been avoided had we paid attention to that.

Not in the service schedule, though.

 

Holy cow. I'm about ready for the 10000 mile inspection, oil and tire rotation. I posted on PC before about my tire puncture during the 5000 mile where Toyota says they won't fix it since the puncture was close to the sidewall. I plugged the tire myself and posted pictures on that same post. Will Toyota tell me they need me to replace that tire again if they find it? A few years ago, I brought my mini Cooper to big o tires to get a leaky valve stem replace, they pulled my plug out and said it was illegal. They shoved it in front of my face and said "you need a new tire. Unless we want me to stick this back in there" Toyota won't do that, right?

 

I bet they won't even notice!!! There's a chance they won't even rotate the tyres, despite charging for it.

 

Toyota is never going to see your car, just some dealer.

 

That is supposed to be encouraging? I would rather Toyota look at it. Based on their vehicle design and construction Toyota should be halfway competent.

 

A recently published report by a UK motoring association advises against tyre rotations. They suggest for safety reasons the best tyres should always be on the back because it's easier to control understeer than to correct oversteer. That is to say, it's more dangerous for the back end to break away than the front to lose grip. Can't remember the authority, but I read it on the BBC news app.

 

Yes, I had that recommended to me about 40 years ago.

Remember when crossplies were being replaced by the much better radials, the recommendation if they were being mixed was to ALWAYS put the best ones (radials) on the back.

I could only afford 2 new tyres (17yr old), selected radials, they were installed on the back.

BUT I knew better - of course. The front wheels do the steering and braking don't they - the so-called "experts" have no idea. So I jacked the car up, swapped them back to front (radials on the front, worn cross-plies on the back). The tyre pressures needed adjusting so I headed to the petrol (gas) station to adjust them. First corner - the car almost spun out on me, wildly oversteering, and up the road to the petrol station, it was wandering terribly ... this car which had felt so great driving from the tyre depot. I turned around, went home, jacked it up and reversed the procedure. Then took it for a long run - it was GREAT.

In hindsight - that's why many supercars have wider tyres on the back - I thought it was for grip, but it's for balance too.

Dunlop published a guide about 20 years ago where they specified that the best tyres MUST always be on the back of the car.

 

While Tesla is trying to have company owned dealerships, (and failing) that is not the model in the US. You -> Dealership -> Distributor -> Manufacturer. It is possible you will at some point have contact with the Distributor, it is wildly unlikely you will ever do business with the Manufacturer.

 

There are two levels of brake maintenance in the schedule. Trouble is, the differences are subtle, easily missed. The Canadian booklet shows the maintenance schedule in graph form, which is infinitely easier to comprehend, at least.

The US booklet shows it's schedule event-by-event, spoon feeding owners. Basically saying do this, do that, don't ask why or when, don't look for patterns. Anyway, a couple excepts from the US booklet:



This is the "usual" mention of brake maintenance, always shown in conjuction with "Rotate tires".

However, at 30K miles, or 36 months (whichever comes first), there's this:



And footnote #3:



So there's the "clues", and I use the word pointedly: they're too dang subtle. But anyway, Toyota USA is saying:

Do a visual brake inspection every 5000 miles (or six months), in conjunction with tire rotation. And, every 30K miles (or 3 years), do an in-depth full brake inspection.

Now, what does the latter entail? Go to the brake section of the Toyota "Repair Manual", and you'll find a real mish-mash. There's no clearly titled section saying "brake inspection", do this, this and this.

If you read through it, and have a background involving DIY brake inspection, you can find what you need. My background is with a string of Hondas. I've alway bought the Honda Shop Manual, and they shine in comparison. There's clearly delineated sections, spelling out what a brake inspection entails.

I went through the Canadian and US schedules, and made a graph format summary of what they encompass. With the 2010 Canadian schedule, it was virtually out of necessity: that booklet was a hopeless mishmash, impossible to read. It's actually improved a lot now. The 2014 booklet has a graph format schedule, clear and easy to read.

Anyway, here's my graph format US schedule:



I'll attach spreadsheet of the above, and the brake section of the Repair Manual

 

In 1987, I was a programmer at Honda Canada, the distributor for Hondas in Canada (duh). I was doing a French translation of dealer software I had previously written for American Honda and Honda Canada.

As a celebration, I was allowed to have dinner with the Japanese Vice Presidents. (I had octopus, as it did not crumble with my poor skill at chopsticks.The VPs were laughing at me because the octopus was the only cooked item and they though I was afraid of raw food. I explained through the translator that is was afraid of looking clumsy, not afraid of dying)

Other than the one evening, I never saw anyone at Honda Canada from Japan in the year I was there.

 

...and? Is this gonna be a serial? When's the next episode due for screening?

 

Thank you, ATHiker. I'm going to chalk my tires and photograph when I bring my 2016 in for its 10k service. It was not done at 5K. How can I prove they actually change the oil?...