Ripped Off For Front Pads And Disks

[mark999]

Recently had the Auris in for service at John Roe Toyota Hull. 4th service car only done 14k.

Was informed that it needed new front pads and disks. I asked for the old parts to be returned.

As you can see from the photos the pads are virtually untouched. The only problem with the disks was a small rim of rust on the inside outer edge.

I emailed the service manager with no response. I am very seriously considering a complaint to Mr T I have had a catalogue of problems with this dealer and have lost confidence.

[Cyker]

What's up with the back-face of your disc? It looks like only a small band of the pad was contacting the disc so you might want to get that checked as both faces should have thick shiny bands rather than a small band in the middle...

I had that on my Yaris and I believe that is what caused my brakes to lock-up and go into ABS mode prematurely, causing me to rear-end someone when coming off the motorway... :(

(After I got my car back from the insurers with a new front end, I had discs and pads changed and after that I could slam the brakes down and not trigger the ABS while braking much much harder! The wear pattern for both sides is now more like the front-face of your disc which is as it should be!)

[FROSTYBALLS]

You would probably be best to complain to the John Roe's Dealer Principal. Toyota GB will probably refer your complaint to this person should you submit a complaint to them.

[Parts-King]

Regardless of the pad thickness it is good engineering practice to change pads with new discs

As Frosty says, if you feel like you want to complain about any aspect of your visit, your contract is with the dealer, not Toyota GB, so speak to the Service Manager or Centre Principle first

Kingo

[cmclean]

Possible couple of options for this.

1: Clean up the pads and discs with emery and make sure you get full contact between pad and disc - probably costs less in labour charges against new pads and discs, but maybe less profit for the dealer, plus it takes time which may not be available

2: As per what was done, renew the pads and discs - takes less time and probably more profit on the mark up on parts costs.

[Notoyboy]

I'm surprised to see that type of wear on the front discs, though could understand it more if on the rear. As a DIYer, I'd have used an angle grinder with emery discs to clean the faces up, in the first instance. Perhaps garage should have discussed the options with OP first, before fitting new discs. I agree with new pads if new discs fitted.

Wondering if the car gets little use, and is driven gently, allowing rust corrosion to work it's way in from the outer edge. Disc replacement due to corrosion often features in Honest John's letters in D. Telegraph.

[unclepoo]

As most of the braking is done by the charging/regen system, and the brake pads come into use at less than 20mph or under heavy braking, it is a good idea to clean off the pads and discs from time to time......pick a gentle down hill slope, wait until the road is quiet, and accelerate about 30mph down the hill, if it`s safe to do so, push the drive selector into neutral and hold there for 1 second, so the car is coasting, now brake as you would a normal car....you`ll need more pedal pressure than usual as there`s no regen braking, just your brake pads...they`ll probably feel weak at first, but improve quickly as they clean up. Come to a stop, slip it back into drive and its job done.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

As most of the braking is done by the charging/regen system, and the brake pads come into use at less than 20mph or under heavy braking, it is a good idea to clean off the pads and discs from time to time......pick a gentle down hill slope, wait until the road is quiet, and accelerate about 30mph down the hill, if it`s safe to do so, push the drive selector into neutral and hold there for 1 second, so the car is coasting, now brake as you would a normal car....you`ll need more pedal pressure than usual as there`s no regen braking, just your brake pads...they`ll probably feel weak at first, but improve quickly as they clean up. Come to a stop, slip it back into drive and its job done.

Doing that can cause HSD damage though apparently (something about one of the generators spinning too fast??).

Far better off in a empty car park reversing at a slowish speed and braking a few times, as no regen when in reverse.

[unclepoo]

As far as I`m aware, what I described above, was recommended by a toyota technician. Though I stand to be corrected.

I`ve done it without any harm, but only twice.

[Sagitar]

I reverse from the garage every morning and do a three point turn on the drive to get the car facing the street. I guess the braking that I do during these manoeuvres is sufficient to keep the brakes free of rust because the discs are always shiny and I never have to do anything special.

[timberwolf]

A Motor/Generator would only spin too fast if the vehicle was travelling at high speed. I don't think 30 mph is cause for concern.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

I reverse from the garage every morning and do a three point turn on the drive to get the car facing the street. I guess the braking that I do during these manoeuvres is sufficient to keep the brakes free of rust because the discs are always shiny and I never have to do anything special.

Yep, I reverse into my drive daily, and seem to occasionally misjudge a roundabout resulting in harder than usual braking which seems to keep mine nice and clean also.

[MEP's Yaris GS]

A Motor/Generator would only spin too fast if the vehicle was travelling at high speed. I don't think 30 mph is cause for concern.

Define high speed.....

Is it really worth the risk when a easy reverse manoeuvre won't cause any potential damage to the drive system?

[timberwolf]

A Motor/Generator would only spin too fast if the vehicle was travelling at high speed. I don't think 30 mph is cause for concern.

Define high speed.....

Is it really worth the risk when a easy reverse manoeuvre won't cause any potential damage to the drive system?

For the first generation Prius it was 42 mph - example http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

Reversing didn't work for me. I would suggest the correct way to prevent the brakes from seizing is to strip and clean them, this isn't done at a regular service interval because...?

[PeteB]

For the first generation Prius it was 42 mph

Also for 2nd Gen.

For third Gen Hybrids it's 45 mph.

If you pay close attention, when you're slowing down and pass the key speed (especially if not braking at the time) you can feel a very slight tremor as the ICE stops.

[chrismorrow]

Right, there is much speculation about this. You CAN shift to neutral at 70 80 or even 90 of you wish, you will hear the engine speed up to slow one of the MG down, the only way you could ever over spin the motors is if you were doing 30 in EV and shift to neutral then this stops the engine coming on, if you then were to roll down a very steep hill and exceeded 45 mph then the electric motors would over speed. It is perfectly safe to shift to neutral at high speed and break if you need to wear in the breaks or if you need to get the rust off. The hybrid system will always protect itself, that's why at above 45 mph if you shift to neutral the engine rpm will increase to slow either mg1 or mg2 down, it's all controlled by computers with very close parameters. It's hard to damage anything in these cars!

[kithmo]

I reverse from the garage every morning and do a three point turn on the drive to get the car facing the street. I guess the braking that I do during these manoeuvres is sufficient to keep the brakes free of rust because the discs are always shiny and I never have to do anything special.

ditto.

[kithmo]

Mark999, the picture of the back of the old discs shows quite a considerable amount of rusting, it looks like almost 50% of the face is gone to me, that's 25% of your braking on each disc. If the dealer just replaced the discs and not the pads, the braking would be worse than before until the pads bedded in to the new discs and probably cause the new discs to wear unevenly. In your situation, I would count my blessings that the dealer spotted this before you needed to do an emergency stop and thank him for changing them.

I understand your frustration, the fact that this needed doing at such a low mileage, but brakes are quite an important safety feature and the dealer is obligated to point the problem out to you on a safety check, even if you are not obliged to have it done.

Think how you would feel if the dealer had not pointed it out, you had to brake hard and spun off into a ditch and then found out the disks were bad. You would then blame the dealer, and rightly so.

[YarisHybrid2016]

I find a quiet straight piece of road, accelerate to 60 MPH then brake much harder than isnormal (to ensure the brakes come on hard) and brake progressively harder as the car slows down. This not only cleans the discs but helps get some heat into them. I'll then do it a second time.

I only do this about once per month.

A couple of times I have had the rear pads stick on, but they seem to free themselves when pulling off the drive. The car can sit for 3 days before it is used again. I make sure to do some hard braking to clean them up when this happens.

Another tip is after washing the car, take it out and do some braking to ensure water isn't hanging around the brakes. This should help the rust problem.

I'm considering putting covers on the wheels as the rain can get through onto the discs. After rainfall, I often see small rust patches where the rain landed.

[TomdeGuerre]

Seems the rusty brakes thing is the achilles heel of the hybrids with owners having to do some extra, sometimes hard, braking just to keep them clean. A bit like the diesel particulate filter on the diesels where some owners have to take them for unnecessary thrashes down the motorway just to try and keep them clean.

As Captain Scotty said on USS Enterprise "You canny change the laws of physics, captain".

[YarisHybrid2016]

I think it is a very minor thing, considering! :) So long as you keep on top of it, it shouldn't degrade into a big problem. Prevention is most certainly the way!

[Heidfirst]

read a post on HonestJohn with a very similar thing happening on low mileage VW Golfs with EPB

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/askhj/answer/65144/vw-golf-rear-brake-discs

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=112453

[PeteB]

The certainly don't seem to like infrequent use, especially if not garaged.

My 2nd Prius had hardly used any disc/pad thickness at nearly 100k, but a year of driving someone else's Prius for work saw it only used about once every 2 weeks, and the cycles of rust and cleaning it off wore them to minimum in just 7,000 miles!

I'm sure a better quality mix of metals for the discs would prevent this, but Toyota's solution was to change the wording of their warranty terms so they stopped paying out for them.

[TomdeGuerre]

I read a while back that future brakes will be electrical actuators for each wheel doing away with the whole hydraulics business. Easier to control for ABS, VSC etc and no reason why they shouldn’t be every bit as reliable.

Maybe they’ll programme in a system of lightly applying the brakes whilst driving to clean off disc surface corrosion although there would be a fuel penalty involved with the car having to overcome any braking effort applied. Don’t laugh, who’d ever have believed they would invent s system of injecting raw fuel into the exhaust system to clean out a DPF?

I remember Ford used to sell brake pads with an abrasive strip embedded in the leading edge to clean up grotty discs. I fitted them a couple of times and the brakes sounded really “grindy” at first but the abrasive surface wore off after a few miles.

[Cyker]

My EBC GreenStuffs had something like that; They market it as a 'brake-in' layer but it's just a very abrasive coating to try and sand out any uneven bits on the disc and make sure the two surfaces are flat.