When did your Prius need new brakes?

As long as the brakes are getting inspected on a reasonable schedule (see this other post for more), they are unlikely to need "new brakes" anywhere near the 60k mark, and probably not for two or three times that.

(I'll mention in passing that I don't personally subscribe to the "brake job" or "new brakes" philosophy of working on brakes. When my inspection turns up parts that are due for replacement, I replace those parts, and that's it.)

However, if a Prius has reached 60k without regular brake inspections, it is very much possible for significant work to be needed. A variety of small issues that decent inspection would catch are able to eat up the brakes way ahead of schedule if not caught.

 

260k miles original unmachined rotors and front pads. Changed rear pads 10k miles ago with a howling rear hub bearing. The rear pads were still legal. I try to anticipate stops and use regen to the highest degree possible. If someone always sped up to a stop and then hit the brakes hard, they might wear the brakes quicker. I would expect the rotors would warp and pulse.

 

^ Yes. This does not come free either; it is a fair bit of labour. Usually no parts need replacement, just a bit of fresh lube, some squirts of brake cleaner and a few shop towels involved, but it takes time. Typically $200~400 at dealership.

 

what year is her prius?
unless you're in a coastal part of florida with salt air corrosion, never would be my opinion.

even here with heavy road salt, i've never needed brakes, or lubed the calipers on 3 prius and 2 hycams. (but i do think inspections and caliper lube are important)

we have seen some incidences of rusting gen 4 brakes in the rust belt at low miles for some odd reason, maybe defective.

 

It is pretty much Nature's perfect DIY task. My typical brake inspection costs me zero dollars, no bit of lube, no squirts of brake cleaner, and just a matter of minutes to do (combined with a tire rotation, when I have the wheels off anyway).

If I find that anything does need a bit of lube then I'll lube it. I almost never find that. There are slide pins whose grease will become, umm, complacent (as the normal motion is never more than 0.3 mm back and forth), but usually wakes right back up if I simply shove the caliper inward and outward a few times. As long as the motion feels smooth and greasy then, I leave it at that.

 

I just did that two days ago as part of the tire rotation. I took off the calipers, though, to get a better feel for the slide pins. They were a little stiff. I ran them back & forth, spun them around, and looked for cracks in the rubber boot. That limbered everything back up. Brake pads all looked like about 7mm remaining after over 62k miles.

 

'My' first company Prius went 150,000 miles without needing brake work.
I only had the second one for 50,000 miles but it's still in service with 150,000 miles on the clock on it's original brakes.

Both were 2010 G3's (same brakes as the lower-case 'v' model?)

IMHO, your SIL "might" have been ripped off by the dealer.....or?
She might be a horrible driver.
(Doubtful - IMHO)
Her previous history with brakes might reveal a history of being a two-footed driver, or she might be an urbanite with a ton of stop-and-go traffic.
Or?
It might be environmental
Road salt, sea salt, sand etc...all can reduce brake life.
None of my last half dozen personal cars (all GMCs) have ever needed brake work in their first 150,000 miles in service, and they're a lot heavier and not equipped with regenerative brakes.

Also:
Rotors.
$500 for brake pad replacement is a bit steep - even by dealer standards.
Did the SIL need rotors or was it just pads?
I've seen (other people's) cars needing brake work for warped or otherwise damaged rotors when the pads themselves were still in spec.


ALWAYS get a second opinion!!!!!!
Or?
Check them yourself!

From the Googles:
How do you check brake pads on a Prius?

You might need a flashlight to get a good look at the brake pad. If the pads look thin, less than 1/4", it might be time to get them replaced. On some brake pads, you might see a wear indicator slot down the center of the pad. If the slot is gone or just barely visible, it's time for new brake pads.

 

Yes, I should have elaborated. I unscrew one slide pin bolt, so I can pivot the caliper up around the other pin, and waggle them (the caliper on one pin, and the other pin by itself) back and forth to wake the grease up. Then I pivot it back down and put the bolt back.

Without flipping the caliper up, and with the pads in place, it generally can't be waggled more than 0.3 mm back and forth anyway, which is what leaves the grease needing a wake-up in the first place.

 

I go a little further: take both caliper bolts (the ones that screw into the caliper pins) out, pull the caliper completely off, and tie it to the suspension spring above. Then disassemble the pads/shims, apply fresh lube on all faying surfaces and reassemble, clean the caliper "fingers" and front face of piston, apply a little lube to them, pull the calipers pins, wipe clean, relube and reinstall (kinda screw them in, carefully, to avoid scraping off the lube on the boots).

Just every 4~5 years now, our usage being so low.

Addendum: if there's been any pulsation, or I'm feeling ambitious, I'll get out the micrometer and dial gauge (with mag. base) and check the rotor. I've never seen an out-of-spec issue though, so only do this rarely.

 

i wish you were my doctor

 

Two foot driver? Or one foot? I was surprised to see how thin the front pads were on ours with less than/close to 30k mi. Then I remembered my mother who drove it until a bad accident caused her to quit drives with both feet, left on the brake right on the gas....

REVVL V+ 5G ?

 

The way the car was driven can make it need pads every 3 months or still have newish condition brakes even after hundreds of thousands of miles.

On all my cars, especially the ones with regenerative braking or good engine braking (I would always downshift when slowing down, even in an automatic) I never have needed to replace the brakes. This included a 1985 VW Golf that even after 700,000 miles still apparently had the original brakes on it and didn't need new ones.

A neighbor lady once asked me to see why her brakes were so noisy. The pads were gone and most of the rotors were too. She got everything replaced but 6 months later the pads and rotors were again obliterated. The Dodge Caravan she drove wasn't known for having lasting brakes, but she aslo drove like an absolute maniac.

I drove school bus here in the Rockies and the mechanic said he never every had to change a school bus brake shoe in his 30 years of working here because the school bus drivers all knew how to downshift over the mountains and maintain a safe speed using the service brakes (aka "friction brakes") as little as possible. Even on flat routes we all downshifted and/or used a retarder brake (aka "non-friction brake") coming up to stops.

The same mechanic said that the company cars that the teachers would drive would always come back with warped rotors as the teachers apparently didn't know how to downshift when traveling over mountain passes. He ended up swaping all the brakes on all the teacher driven vehicles for oversized, drilled and slotted rotors and high performance ceramic brake pads. That way he didn't have to change the rotors and/or pads every time the car was driven.

 

120,000 thousand miles and brake pads are fine. Live in Florida about 26 miles from beautiful beaches.

 

200k miles+ is typical here servicing over a dozen gen 3s....

 

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200k miles is typical here servicing over a dozen gen 3s....

 

Likely drum brakes? You can't beat them for longevity. OTOH I found them more of a handful to DIY replace shoes (if ever needed).

 

I will comment that I find the rear brakes wear out first on the Prius. Still 60,000 mi is way too soon but I didn't see the pads so it's hard to have an accurate opinion. It's really just conjecture. Sometimes we approach a job with a preconceived notion only to find something surprising when we actually look at the problem. I'd be suspect, but it wouldn't jump to a full-on conclusion