Is brake clunk a way of life with these trucks?

Just wondering if I’m the only one who notices the profound brake clunk when you reverse directions and apply the brakes with these Tacos. I understand there is gonna be some play that needs to be taken up when the wheels change direction, but I notice it more with my Tacoma than other vehicles. Maybe my brake hardware is worn? Anyone else annoyed by this?

 

Never had a problem with my stock rig. Are you lifted?

 

Yes. Not a huge amount. About 1.5”. How would that affect the brakes? Honest question.

 

Are you positive that it's the brakes?

 

Yes. It only happens once. Basically every time I change the direction of the braking. Going in reverse and stopping, and then going forward and stopping, and vice versa.

 

I haven’t had it on any of my 3rd gens, but it was very noticeable on my 2nd gen. Not as much going from drive to reverse, but reverse to drive I always got a loud clunk/clank. Dealer said they all did that, but some were louder than others.

I feel like I remember something about people using shims to help reduce the amount of play in the brakes, but that was a long time ago, so I could be mistaken on that part.

 

Good info thank you. I’m thinking it has gotten worse on my truck now that everything is aging.

 

I only get it when it's below freezing for the first 5 mins of a drive before the truck is fully warmed up. Then the clunk goes away

 

I don't have any brake clunk in my truck when the wheels change direction but my truck is MT so there is no pressure from the transmission on the brakes.

 

Yes, it is normal. It is much easier to hear when the windows are open. I don't know why it's a thing when most other vehicles don't have it, but it is.

 

Do you not leave your truck in gear when parked on a hill?

 

Sometimes I think the biggest fail in the design of the 3G Tacoma is lack of sound deadening.

If you think about it, a lot of the complaints about these trucks wouldn’t be so prevalent if we couldn’t hear them happening.

Gear hunting, buzzing engine, injector ticking, brake clunk. These things all likely happen on the Lexus line as well, you just can’t hear them.

 

Yes I always park leaving my truck in gear, but in a situation after being parked on a hill I would be using the handbrake to hold until I was pulling out.

 

Ahhh. Yes. I understand.

 

I've heard it called pad slap, and yes, my truck does it quite audibly, when the windows are down (all the time).

 

I’ve got a new term! Thanks.

 

Seems to happen on hard braking for me . Had dealer check it out perfectly normal . I have read that others added some lubricant to the brake components to help with noise .

 

Every vehicle I've had, had pad slap. Doesn't bother me a bit. Let's me know the anti drag clips are doing their job.

 

There's some info in the thread below about the brake clunk noise, if you haven’t already found it. Some folks were greasing the pins on the caliper and some were adding a second spring to the top of the brake pad. I didn’t see anything about shims, so maybe I was thinking of something else. Others said changing the pads helped.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/brake-click-fix.157684/page-2

 

The pads are held in place by one set of spring clips per side. You can double up with a second set of clips per side, it reduces the “clink” when changing from forward to reverse and vice versa by 95%