Servicing Comments

[wass]

While our gen 2 was being serviced, I received a phone call from the dealership. They informed me that the front pads were 80% worn, the front discs needed replacing and the front tyres were excessively worn on the inner edges and would require renewal and the steering geometry checked..

Having comparatively recently taken the brakes to pieces in order to clean them out, I felt sure that I knew the status of everything and thanked the dealership very much for their observations and quotation for remedial action but declined their kind offer.

I have just carried out a very careful examination of the front brakes and tyres. I would describe the pads as being approximately 25% worn, if that. The brake discs are 1.3mm and 1.35mm above the wear limit of 20mm which is cast into the inside surface of the disc itself. The tyres are worn evenly across the entire width of the tread and the tread depth is 2.3mm. In fact, the brakes and tyres had worn negligably in the 2000 miles since I had previously inspected them.

I plan to fit new tyres when the tread wear gets to 2mm and I will renew the brakepads in October just before the council throw salt onto the roads. The brake discs will be measured again in October, however I doubt that they will have worn out in that time.

In fairness to the garage, they wouldnt know how we tend to drive our car and therefore wouldnt be able to accurately predict when the tyres, pads and discs would require renewal and so erred on the side of safety in advising that these items required renewal. I didnt like the embroidered presentation of the facts(80% worn pads, tyres uneven, geometry resetting etc) I began to wonder how much money is routinely wasted in paying for goods and services which are simply not required. I guess that i am luckier than most in that my education encompassed an engineering apprenticeship during which I learnt core skills such as how to read depth gauges, micrometers and verniers. Paying for servicing is something which I have always regarded as a necessary evil when the vehicle in question requires specialist knowledge and equipment in order to complete the work.

A quaint old saying comes to mind," dont **** up my back and tell me its raining"

[timberwolf]

I suspect as non-experts most of us are marks ready to be fleeced:-(

I would guess that the only way to stop it would be for Toyota GB to send in secret shoppers to catch out the dishonest dealers. I've heard of it happening with other makes, one of my colleagues had a Jaguar dealer that was claiming all sorts of things were broken, he got wise after the same dealer tried to pull the same con twice for unnecessary work by claiming the same thing had broken on two separate services.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Did you personally check ALL the front pads, including the hard to see inner ones?

I was informed by my dealers that my front pads were down to 1mm and having looked at them through the wheel they looked ok. Took it down to a very trusted garage who checked them all for me and showed that the inner pads were indeed worn more than the outers. So it appears that the Toyota dealers were telling the truth.

[Chris Dance]

I think Toyota dealers do err on the side of safety. On my previous gen 2 they renewed the front RH wheel bearing.. Servicing manager said the bearing was not worn out but as I only had the car serviced only once a year the bearing may go in that time. The warranty was due to run out that month so the job was done under warranty. I think most Toyota dealers are honest and predict what could wear out in the next year.

[acetip]

I think Toyota dealers do err on the side of safety. On my previous gen 2 they renewed the front RH wheel bearing.. Servicing manager said the bearing was not worn out but as I only had the car serviced only once a year the bearing may go in that time. The warranty was due to run out that month so the job was done under warranty. I think most Toyota dealers are honest and predict what could wear out in the next year.

They must have had a reason for replacing the bearing, if not, why not replace both bearings Usuel sign of wheel bearing problems is the bearing is noisey,

had you mentioned this to them.

Most Toyota dealers honest ?. Doubt it.

With things like brake pads ,a dealer can judge if they need replacing before you next service is due by your annual miliage.

But there is no way they can say when a wheel bearing is going to fail.

They can last the life time of a car. but then one can fail at a much shorter time.

[kithmo]

I had a noisy wheel bearing for 4 years on a Mk3 Cortina, but in those days you could strip, clean, re-grease and adjust them, which I did every year.

IMO It's potholes and kerbing that kills the modern non-servicable sealed bearings, providing the seal isn't damaged.

Incidentlty, SWMBO had her Gen 2 serviced last Saturday and got told her front pads were 80% worn and she had them replaced. I hadn't had a chance to check them before the service, but the last time I looked at them was 2 years ago and although there was plenty of meat (10mm or so) on 3 of the pads one pad was down to 5mm thick due to the fact that it had been sticking, so I guess 2 years later it was probably getting low.

[wass]

Did you personally check ALL the front pads, including the hard to see inner ones?

I was informed by my dealers that my front pads were down to 1mm and having looked at them through the wheel they looked ok. Took it down to a very trusted garage who checked them all for me and showed that the inner pads were indeed worn more than the outers. So it appears that the Toyota dealers were telling the truth.

Yes I took the pads out and removed the calipers in order to measure the disc thickness accurately.

[bravo67]

When I collected my new prius last year and drove away from the forecourt, it immediately felt that the rear wheels were out of balance. The following day I returned the car to the dealer and whilst they could not detect anything wrong they exchanged the front and rear wheels. The report from the mechanic included the statement that all the brake pads were 10% worn - the car had only 14 miles on the clock ! On this basis I reckoned on new brake pads being required after a further 126 miles ! At the 10,000 mile service, 10 months later, they were still reported as 10% worn.

Incidently the problem with the rear wheels continued for the first 1,000 miles but having worn in have since been fine. It was more likely caused by the rear suspension wearing in as reported by some on the US forum.

[Parts-King]

Your dealer does have to be cautious. The technician is not likely to know how many miles you do in a year, and with servicing intervals only once a year, a higher mileage driver could well wear his brakes out in 6 months where as little miss Daisy will last for two years. One of the reasons for a FREE VSR is to let you come into your dealer for these things to be checked out. ALL customers HATE having to come back in to have things checked, once they leave the door they dont want to come back again for another year, so when we say, come back in 6 months for us to check the brakes again, we are dammed if we do and dammed if we dont.

It is just not fair to say ALL dealers rip off their customers, they dont, we are subject to drop in visits from Trading Standards and the hassle it causes is just not worth it for ANY reputable company. You should see some of the jobs we have to put right from so called "reputable" independant garages, just like the main dealers, they are not all bad but very few have licensed technicians and very few have any form of ongoing training, unless they are members of the Good Garage Scheme, Motorcodes, or similar

Lets not forget the tens of thousands of jobs completed every day by all sorts of garages, 99.9% will be good honest jobs, 0.1% will be poor and those who have a poor experience are likely to drop into a forum such as this to vent their spleen, that is picked up by visitors to the site and all of a sudden every dealer is a shark, they are not

Kingo

[Chris Dance]

Well said Parts King you have outlined the points I was trying to make in my earlier post. I have dealt with three different Toyota dealers and I have had only one complaint.

[driverandrews]

Just had my gen 2 40000 mile service done at Toyota world Bristol North, and I can't praise them enough.

Front pads 10% worn, rears 20% worn, everything fine.

The quote for the service was £288 including brake fluid replacement. The thing is, they only charged me £227 because they said they

didn't have to replace the spark plugs as this is only done at 60000 miles. The point is, they could have charged me the £288 and said nothing

and I would have happily paid. In my opinion, their honesty deserves a gold star and because of it they have gained a very happy customer

for life.

I went to Bristol North, despite them not being the nearest, because they were recommended elsewhere on this forum and I think this says a

lot about the idea of producing a list of recommended garages. Perhaps,if nothing else, this would encourage those not on the list to buck

their ideas up.

[bribarb]

I am having a problem with the brakes on my 2006 Spirit. The passenger side rear brake pads have worn out again so they had to be changed. The caliper is not sticking but the brake appears to be fractionally on most of the time. When I stop and feel the wheel it is very hot. The caliper has been checked again with the new pads and it appears to be ok at the moment. The offside pads show little wear.

[wass]

I am having a problem with the brakes on my 2006 Spirit. The passenger side rear brake pads have worn out again so they had to be changed. The caliper is not sticking but the brake appears to be fractionally on most of the time. When I stop and feel the wheel it is very hot. The caliper has been checked again with the new pads and it appears to be ok at the moment. The offside pads show little wear.

If the brake appears to be fractionally dragging most of the time, then I can not imagine that the fault would be anything other than a sticking caliper. Our 2007 shows very little signs of wear on the rear discs which probably means that the rear calipers are seldom used with the majority of breaking effect going towards recharging the Battery. I would imagine that a seldom used caliper would be more likely to drag in time than a regularly used caliper and therefore I clean my calipers out regularly to try to prevent any binding.