Time for brakes / rotors - upgrade?

I'm at 50K miles on my 2016 DCLB TRD 4x4 Sport and my rotors are warped; it's pretty obvious in the steering wheel whenever I brake. Brake pads are fine but I always swap them out when I put on new or turned rotors so they align correctly.

Changing out brake pads and rotors are pretty simple in most vehicles so I usually do it myself to save time and money. I prefer to buy an extra set of rotors so I can have the opposite set turned and ready to be installed the next time I need them instead of dealing with a vehicle on jack stands while I'm waiting 1-2 hours for the rotors to be ready.

Here's the question: on Tacoma's is it beneficial to upgrade to drilled and/or cross slotted, or just stick with OEM products? What brake pads is everyone using?

 

Too bad Sweers didn't put Disc brakes on the rear. I always use OEM brake pads.

 

Keep it all the same. Rock Auto has a decent rotor pad set up. cheaper, tried and true.

 

OEM rotors are just fine, you're not tracking the truck so you're not going to experience brake fade anytime soon. However, I do recommend ceramic brake pads as they pretty much eliminate brake dust on your wheels.

 

Ceramic pads aren't any harder on your pads than OE.

 

How the hell have you warped your rotors at 50K miles? Hell...I put 150K on a Camry and the rotors were fine.

 

he's not the only one well 70k, but same difference really. it happens.

 

I agree with those above. OEM style rotors are fine and ceramic pads are good for dust control. If you drove a sporty car in a spirited manner or autocrossed, then drilled/slotted rotors might be beneficial...not on a truck, though.

 

A couple of questions to the OP about your rotors:
1. When rotating the tires, do you (or your mechanic) make sure the lug nuts are torqued with a torque wrench to the proper ft/lbs per the owners manual? Over tightening is a sure fire way to warp rotors?
2. Do you tow a lot? With our trucks having rear drum brakes that usually don't self-adjust all that well the front brakes have a lot more load put on them if you tow. On the Tundra's "back in the day", they had rear drums and tech's at dealerships were replacing tons of warped front rotors under warranty from people who were towing a lot, so eventually Toyota made rear disc's standard on the Tundra and the warped front rotor problem greatly diminished.
3. Do you drive like you stole it? Always braking hard and possibly never have made sure the rear drums were adjusted?

Just curious to your responses. After 335,000 miles I'm only on my 2nd pair of rotors (always OEM pads and made sure rear drums are adjusted every 10,000 miles) and maybe would have still been on the originals if I never let the dealer turn them around 100,000, after that they warped (were too thin at that point)

 

Rotors don't warp. http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/-warped-brake-disc-and-other-myths

Most (not all) rotors cost very little more than 'turning' at a local shop nowadays. So turning is becoming impractical. And if you think you 'warped' a slab of cast iron before, why would a thinner piece of cast iron be a good choice?

It's more important to regularly service the moving parts (clean and lubricate) than it is to get 'fancy' rotors. A more aggressive pad can be helpful if you have real stopping problems, but that's more driving style than friction material. If you can stab your brakes and kick in the ABS on dry pavement, your stopping is being hampered by your tire grip, not your brakes.

Keeping the fluid periodically changed/bled is important. If the brakes have actually been overheated, boiled fluid in the calipers is more detrimental to the braking than anything else.

If you are overheating your brakes, the question is why? Usually it's vehicle loading and/or driving style. 'sometimes' it will be the brakes are too small, but rarely on a street vehicle. There are dozens of 'spec' racers out there using OE rotors with aggressive pads and good fluid with fine results.

I would never bother with cross drilled rotors on a street vehicle. And if you do, get the really expensive ones that have chamfered holes, not the ones normally seen online, which are prone to stress cracks.

I don't know what your usage style is, but with 50k on a '16, I suspect a lot of pavement pounding. If that's the case, there are two types, city and hwy. If it's all city, you should be about right for pads, with another 50k of rotor life. If it's mostly hwy cruising, you should have another 100k of rotor life left, easy.

 

Rotors on my 2nd gen would sometimes "feel" warped but after some braking similar to a brake bedding procedure they would feel smoother. Might be worth a try.

 

Not sure, but I suspect it's mainly because 99% of my driving is in Atlanta traffic (voted one of the worst in the world - yea for us) where if you leave room, someone's going to cut you off and then slam on the brakes because they're tailgating the person in front of them, causing you to slam on the brakes. And if you drive a moderate speed, people will tailgate you or whip around you, cut you off, and then brake-check you just to be an ass. I could go on, but Atlanta drivers are seriously some of the worst I've ever seen. So it may just be hot spots on the rotors, but either way the vibrations under braking are pretty bad and I need to get it fixed.

1. All service has been done by Toyota so far. All service for the first 60K miles were included when I bought the truck new.
2. Rarely tow anything, and even then it's no more than 1K lbs.
3. I don't drive too aggressive but do have to apply the brakes pretty aggressively from time to time (again, Atlanta traffic).

 

Mine are a bit "warped" at 21K. I don't think it is me either, as I've not had this happen on any other car with less than 80K on the odometer. I'm suspicious that my three or four short tests of crawl control initiated it somehow.

 

I agree, bill has a lot of good stuff in there. Few things to add...
If your rotors are "warped" you really don't give a shit as to the technical cause but instead just want the problem resolved.
Cross drilled slotted nuclear friction rotors with the Kung fu grip won't resolve your issues in the long run and should be avoided. Everyone likes the idea of driving race cars but more times then not, true performance brakes don't give daily drivers the benefits to justify the cost. More times than not they actually cause worse performance because they were designed for the track and not getting a gallon of milk at the grocery store in your 99 civic. Sure your Honda looks badass but you can't stop worth a fuck with cold brakes and you wake the neighbors when you perform your first cold stop of the morning. OEM brakes have been tested and made specifically for your vehicle and unless you are boiling brake fluid and glazing your rotors there is no benefit to it.
Lastly when talking Toyota rotors should be pretty cheap and there is no reason not to buy new rather than having them cut. Other manufucturers are not as cheap and turning rotors is the option that warranty most often pays for unless the rotors are too close to min spec to turn.
As far as keeping your rotors in good shape there's not too much you can do but avoid driving like an ass hat and try to drive a little while after washing your car to prevent rotors from rusting. Heat transfer is the real killer. If you gradually heat up your brakes instead of wild temperate jumps ( relative ) then you really shouldn't run into too many issues unless you have a sticking caliper or the slides are gummed up or you pounded your lug nuts on with a gorilla impact gun.

 

I had an issue with my 2006 Taco brakes and thought it was warped rotors, but it turned out to be corroded caliper pins that the brake pads slide on... Up here in "Salt Country" those pins need to be kept clean and lubed...

 

I rip into the brakes every year for a cleaning and lubrication . All 4 are torn down , cleaned , lubricated and inspected and put back into service .
Not sure if anyone has mentioned the importance of using the " E BRAKE " even if you own an automatic but I believe its a huge factor in saving the front brakes from doing all the work all the time . OE brakes still going strong at 150k.
I did have the brake click issue ,but as mentioned , sometimes you get caught in a salty winter and the pins seize in the calipers
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/brake-click-fix.157684/

Fresh pins ....no bends http://www.ebay.ca/itm/181819310302?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

My $0.02. The Rock Auto Powerstop kit is trash. Well, at least the rotors are. They "warped" within 10K miles. Put on some Brembo blanks on and have been fine now for like 30K+ miles. Same pads...they are at least nice.

The caliper pins, and in general, seized pistons are very common on our style of calipers....sucks but it happens. I too try and take mine apart (caliper off, pads out) just to make sure the pins and pistons are still good every now and then.

 

Clearwater Bill laying down the K-Nowledge! Seriously though, until I was turned on to "brake bedding" by the article Bill linked to I thought I always had warped rotors. Now I have an old 2001 Dakota that I rebedded the brakes on and it has been fantastic brake action ever since. Well like new anyway. Ever since, every new car I get I bed the brakes according to that article and every car has been perfect for brake action, including a 370Z and M235 that have both seen track days. And if you've tracked a car you know that operating conditions are WAY more severe than any street conditions.

I now realize that it is almost impossible to warp a rotor from normal use. The only way that could happen would be some severe downhill towing, or a bad caliper that causes a pad to stay pressed against the rotor and overheat. The first I don't worry about and for the second I have a cheap IR gun that I'll hit the rotors with to make sure everything is ok.

So given that the OP says he doesn't tow, and chances are he *probably* doesn't have a bad caliper, I think the high traffic he mentions is the smoking gun. That sort of stop and go is exactly the sort of condition that leaves pad material on the rotor unevenly and causes the "shudder" in the steering wheel when you hit the brakes. Go rebed your brakes like the article says: "Typically, a series of ten increasingly hard stops from 60mph to 5 mph with normal acceleration in between should get the job done for a high performance street pad. During pad or disc break-in, do not come to a complete stop, so plan where and when you do this procedure with care and concern for yourself and the safety of others. If you come to a complete stop before the break-in process is completed there is the chance for non-uniform pad material transfer or pad imprinting to take place and the results will be what the whole process is trying to avoid. Game over." So 10 hard *slows* then cruise without stopping for 10 minutes or so. NO ABS action should kick in. Find some back country road. By the 5th or 6th slow you should start to smell the brakes. After the 10th just cruise to let the brakes cool before you stop. Do this with every new car or any car with the *shudder*.

 

All drilled/slotted rotors do is look cool until they crack prematurely.