Front Brake Pad Replacement Quote

All depends on driver and conditions.

I have never towed anything besides an empty trailer and I live in a totally flat state.

I used to do a TON of city driving.

When I used to offroad on a regular basis is was primarily in mud and sand.

My brakes were so bad I had cracked springs and killed a wheel cylinder. Never again will I wait so long to inspect them.

City driving + sand + mud = brake killers

 

Yeah I used to not be afraid to go through puddles of sand and mud(it was the thing to do in high school, didn't have to replace anything!), then I graduated and started getting noise from my hubs. Front pads, rotors, and calipers coated in mud, an the rotors scored bad. Back drums full of mud. Scored bad as well. Needless to say I try to avoid

 

This stuff is GOOD to know. Thanks guys.
Ken

 

One of the big reasons that Toyota OEM pads last, and are more expensive in some cases, is that they are the newer style of ceramic pads. They produce practically ZERO brake dust, since they are ceramic. They also have GREAT wear characteristics, and VERY good stopping power.

I see your point. However after working on cars and trucks for the past 25+ years, there ARE other reasons that machining a rotor may be warranted. For example, the majority of the time when a brake pad has finally served it's life, it has worn a bit of a groove on the rotor surface. This can be easily felt. Go to your truck right now, if you have 50k miles on your current pads. Run your finger across the surface of the rotor. As you get to the edge, farthest away from the center, you will feel a "lip" that has formed. This lip, if not removed, can cause new pads to set incorrectly in place, causing erratic wear on the edge of the new pad, as well as a slight reduction in braking capacity while it "cuts in" to the groove. Most OEM rotors are capable of accepting up to .060" of resurfacing without abnormally affecting the braking characteristics, or cooling ability of the rotor. That being said, I usually recommend only machining a rotor once, ever, and then only if you are removing .060" or less TOTAL material. (i.e. no more than .030" on either side, with a combined total of less than .050" of material removed)

 

Really? Wow! I have never even had to replace the front pads on any modern vehicle ( since the invention of metallic brake pads ) that I have owned with less than 100K Miles. Much less the rear shoes. They are no pads in the rear.

I don't ride the brake pedal.

 

A side note here .. you should not be using an air hose on the rear brake shoes. There is more than likely asbestos in the brake shoes and you are just blowing that stuff up in the air to breath in. So that's a no.

Also, if you are going to use brake clean, don't get that on the shoes either. It breaks down the compound in the shoes and can deteriorate them prematurely.

I have been told this by several reputatable mechanics, so I wanted to share this information. No air hose, no brake cleaner on shoes.

 

you can use an air hose but make sure you are outside and wear a mask to not breathe in the dust. it's actually better to use brake kleen and let it run into a pan so you can dispose of the material. a minute amount will not adversely affect the shoes and spray on the backing plate as that's where most of the dust will stick.

you could also use a rag dampened with mineral or some other cleaner to wipe away the dust from the drums to eliminate blowing it out into the open

 

I did my front brakes/rotors last year for $150 and about an hour of my time. They really are an easy job. I had my brakes replaced under used vehicle warranty at 14k and last year I replaced the second set of factory brakes and rotors at 63k. Both sets of factory brakes has what is called pad slap and sounds like crap but the dealers wouldnt do a thing about it and said it was normal. I replaced with aftermarket pads and rotors and the pad slap went away and my pads are wearing great. It really is a job you can do yourself if you are every so slightly mechanically inclined.

 

No one resurfaces rotors anymore, do they? You can buy top quality front rotors for like $60-80 per wheel. I did my brakes in my Gen 1 a bunch, just buy nice pads and rotors and you should be able to get out of it for slightly over $200 and 3 hours of your time. That includes new fluids.

 

Why not resurface your rotors? Like mentioned above feel your rotors.

Are they smooth? If they have any mileage then no I bet they're not smooth. So when you put a new smooth pad on that surface your just killing the life of the pad like you stated turning the rotor does.
Smooth pad on a smooth rotor is going to bed better and brake better and last longer.

Also I got 125k out of my rear shoes when I changed them and they still had life left.

 

Has there ever been any indication that ALSD, TRAC, or ATRAC causes the rear brake shoes to wear faster?

Also the rotors on our trucks......... Are they the type to slide over the wheel studs? Or do you have to take the whole wheel hub off and replace the wheel bearings too? I have seen both but never even had the need to take a wheel off my Tacoma and dont know which design I have.

I have right at 50k on my 2012 and Im expecting to have to do this soon.

 

I totally understand your point Bama, but unless the grooves are deep, the new pads will wear to the shape of the rotor in no time anyway allowing them to make contact just as well. Personally I would just replace them though. Like JimmyH said, you can buy a good quality rotor pretty cheaply nowadays. I still think that unless the rotors are damaged, they should be left alone (other than cleaning), and if they are damaged badly enough to need turning (warped, etc.) I would just replace them. That is just my opinion though.
Ken

 

Just a quick FYI, they have not been allowed to used asbestos in brake pads for MANY years. Yes, there is brake dust, and it is NOT good to breath it, but it's not asbestos.

Maybe I am just looking at it from a professional standpoint. As a shop owner, I am not about to install pads onto a rotor that has even the smallest groove. I could see the lawsuit coming if something ever DID happen after I performed a brake repair.

 

X2 on this.

I don't own a shop nor do repairs but refuse to mate a smooth pad to a rough rotor. Yes maybe it will be ok but better safe then sorry.

 

I always replace my rotors when I do my brakes since I have one vehicle replacing the rotors is easier than me having them resurfaced.

 

The rotor slides over the wheel studs.

 

I have 175k on a Sporttrac that I gave to my son. Brakes are still 100% original. I drove it the first 100k+ and I use as little brake a s possible. I even used it to tow my 18' bass boat. If in WV I can understand replacing brakes at 50 - 60k.

 

That is why there are minimum specs on parts like that. You do not take more than a few thousandths off each side if all you are doing is cleaning them to make a new surface for the new pads to bed in.

Again, this is false. You always need a new surface for new pads. You can not get a set of new pads to bed on a glazed or hardened surface. People you wouldn't put in a new clutch without having the flywheel machined, right?

This is half right kind of. If they are still greater than the minimum machine spec then cut them until they are cleaned up. There is also an overall min spec or discard spec on rotors and drums.



The dealer actually was not trying to screw you over. They were going by what the industry has done for a proper brake job. If not new rotors then resurface when you get new pads. If the rears have life in them which most will for quite a while then clean the dust out of them and adjust them back to have a nice pedal feel and properly working parking brake.

 

You only bleed the brakes when the hydraulic system has been opened. As a good rule of thumb, you should flush or exchange your brake fluid if it is starting to changed color from boiling or absorbing water. It will do that because brake fluid is hydroscopic.

 

I still have to say that I have been putting new pads in WITHOUT turning rotors for YEARS and never had a problem. Back when one of my friends was the service manager at the dealership, he and two of my friends that have been Toyota Master Techs for years used to service my brakes the same way. They told me there was no need to resurface rotors UNLESS there was some kind of rotor damage (warped, glazed, etc.). The only other thing that they suggested was changing the brake fluid and flushing the hydraulic system every so often (can't remember the miles, but it was like 50k or something).
It simply does not make sense to me to turn rotors that have no problems.
Ken