First (and last) time Toyota Owners ...

[Jostan]

Hi Anthony

Sorry to hear you're having issues with your Yaris Hybrid.  I can't quite match your car ownership experience but have been driving for 32 yrs and been a car owner for 30 yrs of those.  Two years ago I had similar issues with a low mileage Honda Civic I purchased used from a main dealer.  I noticed the sticking pistons in the rear calipers quite quickly after it started but rather than taking it to a main dealer where I suspected that it wouldn't be covered under warranty, I took it to my trusted local independent who said the discs hadn't been scored beyond saving and he cleaned up the pistons, greased the sliders and fitted new pads.  It was a little annoying but was certainly not in the £600 ball-park that you've been quoted for new discs & pads so I fully understand your annoyance.  I think it's a feature of many cars these days that manufacturers fit discs & pads to the rear instead of drums & shoes which, in my opinion, would be far more suitable given the conditions that rear brakes tend to operate in.  On a bigger, heavier, more performance related car then discs/pads are the way to go.  On superminis like the Yaris then drums/shoes all day long.  I don't know too much about hybrids but if yours has regenerative braking then the brakes have even less work to do and so makes the problem of sticking pistons/sliders/pads even more likely.  I too have been caught out in the past by the warranty not covering items such as brakes after a relatively short period, and similarly couldn't find anything at the time in the service handbook or owner's manual but it seems to be common across all marques and buried in the small-print somewhere!  Main dealers don't seem to do any actual 'mechanicing' these days so if I owned a Yaris hybrid I'd either be doing a preventative bit of maintenance on the brakes myself or entrusting it to a local garage (although I feel the service from many of them is in steep decline these days as well but I won't go into that as we'd be here all afternoon)!  

I haven't had a Toyota for a long long time but have family members who do and who are pleased with them because of the reliability & dependability compared to others cars they've owned.  Having been disappointed with a few other marques I've owned, and some of the dealer experiences in particular, I'm going to give Toyota another go and pick up my new Aygo X on Tuesday.  Hopefully it's a positive experience (has been so far in the sales process) but we'll see....  My expectations from car & motorcycle dealers these days, especially their so-called 'service' departments, is unfortunately that receiving a barely acceptable service is a positive outcome (but they still badger you to give them a 5* rating on google or whatever!).

Your dealership seems to have been a bit 'fly'/incompetent in not passing on the VSR so if this was a recent purchase then you might get some traction with it.  But equally you could pursue it further with Citizens Advice, Toyota GB etc and get nowhere.  Toyota might even decide to withdraw their £50 'goodwill gesture', though that's no big loss as I suspect you'd pay considerably less than £600 for new discs/pads at a decent independent anyway.

I'm afraid all I can suggest is that you either choose a different main dealer, or if you know of a decent & trusted local independent garage then they should be capable of basic servicing requirements (& would ask you to take any technical hybrid specific problems to a specialist or main dealer).  Any Toyota warranty you have may be affected but this is a personal decision on the balance of risk for an owner to take.  

I can tell from your post that this has really gotten to you, but with all due respect feel that you're maybe overly agitated about it as it's quite a common issue unfortunately.  I've been there in the past and have gotten so annoyed that I've said "F it" and traded a car in for something newer, more expensive, better, only to realise that those marques have the same or other issues as well and I've just wasted money changing my car for no real benefit (like I've just done with a Honda Civic 🤔.  You'd think I'd have learned by now! (No problems BTW, just fancied a change after 3 yrs)).  If you otherwise like the car and it fits your needs, I'd be inclined to keep it but maybe seek out a decent independent garage and forget going to Toyota.  A good service from a different garage alone can change your whole perception of a car and you may fall in love with it again (& your issue definitely seems to be more dealer related than actual car related).  Yarises(?) do seem to get a great reputation for reliability, particularly the hybrids.  Maybe get it out on a quiet road from time to time and, when no-one is around, get to 30mph and stamp on the brakes a few times to make sure everything is moving fully (or if you have a 17-19 yr old grandson, just lend him your car on the odd occasion and you'll never have sticky brakes again)!

[FROSTYBALLS]

2 hours ago, ICF said:

Brake discs only and  not pads are clearly included in the warranty and there is no mention of a 18 month time period.

https://www.toyota.co.uk/content/dam/toyota/nmsc/united-kingdom/owners/warranty/toyota-warranty/toyota-warranty-ts-and-cs-june-2022.pdf

The OP's car is still within the 5 year/100,000 miles new car warranty, which may have different terms and conditions - hence the 18 month reference by the dealer.

The terms and conditions you linked to and dated June 2022, are for the Relax service generated extended warranty (referred to as 'the Additional Warranty), which the OP's car isn't eligible for yet as it hasn't reached either the age limit (5 years) or the mileage limit (100,000 miles).

[Hybrid21]

5 hours ago, paul9 said:

I wonder if it would be a good thing for manufacturers to go back to drum brakes for hybrids and electrics? Maybe they would be better at low usage levels, being enclosed.

Sounds like the OP's dealer could have done a lot better in handling the problem.

 

I know where your coming from Paul, but drum brakes are terrible, would be going back 50 years 😃

[Hybrid21]

Hi Anthony, I can appreciate your frustration with the quality of the discs, the attitude of the dealer and the attitude of Toyota ☹️

My 1987 Golf with 83,000 mls still has the original discs, although really needing changed now  😃

Discs are not what they used to be, like everything else, and unfortunately I think we just need to live with it and cough up 😃

 

[Derek.w]

Anthony Just wondering did you know the brakes were sticking that is weeks before it was dragged of the drive as that was a missed oportunity to have them sorted.

[Catlover]

The OP has not been on this forum for the last 21 hours ie shortly after his OP. This all these good remarks he has not seen. Shame really.

[Paul john]

9 minutes ago, Catlover said:

The OP has not been on this forum for the last 21 hours ie shortly after his OP. This all these good remarks he has not seen. Shame really.

Not sure what that comment means. 
i Sometimes only pop into this forum once a day which is 24 hours. 
 

[planc]

Back in the day when I served my apprenticeship on Toyota's brake discs would last 100,000 miles but pads were worn out around 20-30k, (discs would become very shiny but worn thin).

When asbestos was removed from pads different metal particles were added, this is why the pads stick to the disc when stood for periods due to the moisture in the atmosphere. These particles also grove the disc.

As mentioned before this is not an issue soley to the Toyota brand.

[anchorman]

7 hours ago, paul9 said:

I wonder if it would be a good thing for manufacturers to go back to drum brakes for hybrids and electrics? Maybe they would be better at low usage levels, being enclosed.

Sounds like the OP's dealer could have done a lot better in handling the problem.

 

To understand the principle difference between disc brakes and drum brakes in terms of why they are favoured these days, you need to understand the physics of it.  It is about the relationship between friction and output.  I could sit and draw it but I’ll try to explain.  Due to weight transfer, the front brakes need to take on more work because between 60 and 70% of the work is done by the front.  You can do it with drum brakes by having bigger on the front than the back or just piston sizes of the wheel cylinders.  Drum brakes have a self servo action, in other words the shoes try to wrap around with the rotating drum and this can be used to advantage and increase output.  However, there is a big disadvantage.  The variable is the friction level for the brake lining which can be very high when cold or very low when hot because they fade with high temperature (the surfaces get lubricated with the oil based resin they are made from).  To summarise, drum brakes are very badly effected by relatively small changes in friction.  They do make a good parking brake because a little old lady doesn’t need to pull that hard because they self wrap like throwing a wedge under a door.  Now think about disc brakes.  They do not have a self servo action, the output is determined purely by the nature of the pad and disc and how hard you push them together.  They have a very linear output and they are not effected by the same changes in friction that a drum brake does.  Now you have to think about modern car braking requirements - trust me, they are extremely tough and it would take a while to type out a typical test procedure.  The drum brakes are no longer capable of meeting front axle braking requirements.  They won’t really meet the requirements for rear axles on higher powered, heavier cars - they have discs all round.  You could use them all round on milk floats etc but not on the front of even modest cars so Aygo’s etc have discs on the front.

7 hours ago, Bper said:

Hi Don,

I would be interested in your experience with breaks and the effects of low milage. 

Sure (brakes by the way ;-)).  If we consider a normal healthy working brake rather than corrosion first.  Disc brakes tend to operate in the range of about 100 to 500 degC.  They will go much higher and work quite well at about 600 or 700 at which time the discs will glow orange but you start to get problems with the bond layer (the adhesive that glues them to the backplate) and the rubber parts on the slide pins don’t fair well either.  So take 100 to about 350 as very typical and at these temperatures the pads work well with the disc.  The pad is made from abrasives like silica and lubricants like carbon and together they provide stable friction through that temperature range.  The pad is fitted together with a fibre - usually steel in all our cars but higher end might use ceramics.  Ceramic probably isn’t what you think - they extrude fibres and then make the equivalent of the steel wool in our common or garden pads.  You can do the same with carbon fibre and kevlar but while these posh fibres are strong when hot, they are very expensive. All pads are moulded together by some sort of oil based resin - that’s what stinks and smokes when hot.  Under normal operation, the step based pads we use get hot enough to burn away the resin and constantly present the abrasives to the disc, as they wear they regenerate.  Now come your bit.  If they don’t get much use as in light braking or very low duty, they won’t wear away that resin and they stop wearing out.  The resin no longer gets worn away and the abrasives tend to get lost in a polished surface that gets clogged with wear debris.  You hear it called glazing but that is the next very extreme stage where the surface literally gets polished like a glass surface.  That is the “ordinary” low use effect.  Now a disc brake or a drum brake for that matter is like any other machine, if you put it in grubby environment with little use it will size up just like an old farm gate that never gets opened.  On top of that you get a lot of corrosion if moisture is present and now you can get a compounded effect of low friction, corroded surfaces and seizing up moving parts.  The end result is inevitable.  The bottom line is, you design it to work for the majority at 100 to 350 and if you take it high you burn away that resin and wear them out quick.  If you use them very light duty they shut down. If you use them as intended they work fine, the surfaces remain bright and the parts don’t seize.   

[anchorman]

1 hour ago, Catlover said:

The OP has not been on this forum for the last 21 hours ie shortly after his OP. This all these good remarks he has not seen. Shame really.

It happens!  Sometimes they just poke the nest then go.  He might return with a comment or might observe at arms length!

[Cyker]

Thanks anchs, I like reading stuff like that, very informative!  

I think another reason drums are unlikely to return is it seems harder to implement effective traction/stability control with them - I know every single Yaris from the Mk1 onward had traction control available as an option (Up until I think the Mk3?, where it became mandatory), and in all cases the addition of traction control also meant you got rear discs instead of drums.

[Primus1]

Some of the puma owners are bemoaning that the new cars have rear drums now instead of discs, part of fords cost cutting I believe, some have also had their discs and pads replaced at fairly low mileage so, I think they’ve been done under warranty, they are mild hybrids and not full hybrid like the Yaris/cross…

[anchorman]

14 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Thanks anchs, I like reading stuff like that, very informative!  

I think another reason drums are unlikely to return is it seems harder to implement effective traction/stability control with them - I know every single Yaris from the Mk1 onward had traction control available as an option (Up until I think the Mk3?, where it became mandatory), and in all cases the addition of traction control also meant you got rear discs instead of drums.

Yes that’s true Cykes.  The threshold of a drum brake (the amount of force needed to push the shoes to the drums) is higher than a disc so the reaction times are slower.  As you know the electronics can react in milliseconds but the mechanical parts lag.  The pads are only returned to the off position by the piston seals reverting to their relaxed state.  I used to give slide show talks to the institute of the motor industry and the institute of road transport engineers which were about two hours and we had great discussions at the end.  

[anchorman]

4 minutes ago, Primus1 said:

Some of the puma owners are bemoaning that the new cars have rear drums now instead of discs, part of fords cost cutting I believe, some have also had their discs and pads replaced at fairly low mileage so, I think they’ve been done under warranty, they are mild hybrids and not full hybrid like the Yaris/cross…

Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with drum brakes at the back on many smaller vehicles and even vans.  It solves this parking brake problem because very high clamping force is needed to obtain adequate performance.  That clamping force must also meet a dynamic requirement for type approval.   In other words, there’s no shame in a rear drum brake.   The disc parking is not cheap but there are moves afoot to make them a legal requirement as the little old lady can’t always haul the lever hard enough and people get hurt with runaway cars.  There was a funny story with early Citroen Xantias.  A problem arose on car transporters or ferries when they were parked on steep ramps and were known to fall off.  The fix was to remove the first 7 teeth of the handbrake so the pawl had to be manhandled right up hard to grab the teeth!

[bathtub tom]

4 hours ago, Hybrid21 said:

I know where your coming from Paul, but drum brakes are terrible, would be going back 50 years 😃

If they're 'fit for purpose', why not?

[YarisHybrid2016]

My car is 8 years old with 85k miles on it. I just replaced all four discs/pads as the discs had corroded to the point of MOT advisory.

Hybrids will do this, and it's not a design flaw or cheap parts.

Tesla are even worse (I have nothing against Tesla). So much braking is done through regenerative braking, the physical brakes hardly get used.

[Cyker]

56 minutes ago, anchorman said:

Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with drum brakes at the back on many smaller vehicles and even vans.  It solves this parking brake problem because very high clamping force is needed to obtain adequate performance.  That clamping force must also meet a dynamic requirement for type approval.   In other words, there’s no shame in a rear drum brake.   The disc parking is not cheap but there are moves afoot to make them a legal requirement as the little old lady can’t always haul the lever hard enough and people get hurt with runaway cars.  There was a funny story with early Citroen Xantias.  A problem arose on car transporters or ferries when they were parked on steep ramps and were known to fall off.  The fix was to remove the first 7 teeth of the handbrake so the pawl had to be manhandled right up hard to grab the teeth!

Yeah I found it quite interesting the various attempts to get around that before they gave up and started sticking EPBs on everything.

Earlier ideas had a double-rear brake - The normal pad+disc setup for the hydraulics, but also a small drum-in-hub that was just for the handbrake. Toyota had a clever design that used a cam system, not unlike what they use on competition compound bows, to amplify the handbrake movement to stronger disc clamping force without requiring everyone to have arms like a wrestler to use it...!

 

[Catlover]

10 hours ago, Paul john said:

Not sure what that comment means. 
i Sometimes only pop into this forum once a day which is 24 hours. 
 

Well, obviously the OPoster has a big grump about his car. It took him time to express himself, not with just one short paragraph, but with just short of 30 paragraphs.  He did it no doubt to release his frustration by expressing himself, but probably also to gain some reaction….. maybe support, but some reaction. If I had done that post with the feeling it was written, and I can understand the feeling, I think I would certainly be wanting to know the reaction and whether the reaction was of benefit to me or not. To just write it and then not come back (in 21 hours) just seems odd to me. If he never comes back then he really has missed out on some knowledge that would help him to understand how he himself can have a large input in managing the problem.          

[Andy22]

Unfortunately, I've always found my experience with Toyota to be pretty good.

[Hybrid21]

9 hours ago, bathtub tom said:

If they're 'fit for purpose', why not?

I think it's already been explained why not in previous posts Bob.

Basically drum brakes are not fit for purpose on a modern vehicle 😃

[Bper]

12 hours ago, anchorman said:

To understand the principle difference between disc brakes and drum brakes in terms of why they are favoured these days, you need to understand the physics of it.  It is about the relationship between friction and output.  I could sit and draw it but I’ll try to explain.  Due to weight transfer, the front brakes need to take on more work because between 60 and 70% of the work is done by the front.  You can do it with drum brakes by having bigger on the front than the back or just piston sizes of the wheel cylinders.  Drum brakes have a self servo action, in other words the shoes try to wrap around with the rotating drum and this can be used to advantage and increase output.  However, there is a big disadvantage.  The variable is the friction level for the brake lining which can be very high when cold or very low when hot because they fade with high temperature (the surfaces get lubricated with the oil based resin they are made from).  To summarise, drum brakes are very badly effected by relatively small changes in friction.  They do make a good parking brake because a little old lady doesn’t need to pull that hard because they self wrap like throwing a wedge under a door.  Now think about disc brakes.  They do not have a self servo action, the output is determined purely by the nature of the pad and disc and how hard you push them together.  They have a very linear output and they are not effected by the same changes in friction that a drum brake does.  Now you have to think about modern car braking requirements - trust me, they are extremely tough and it would take a while to type out a typical test procedure.  The drum brakes are no longer capable of meeting front axle braking requirements.  They won’t really meet the requirements for rear axles on higher powered, heavier cars - they have discs all round.  You could use them all round on milk floats etc but not on the front of even modest cars so Aygo’s etc have discs on the front.

Sure (brakes by the way ;-)).  If we consider a normal healthy working brake rather than corrosion first.  Disc brakes tend to operate in the range of about 100 to 500 degC.  They will go much higher and work quite well at about 600 or 700 at which time the discs will glow orange but you start to get problems with the bond layer (the adhesive that glues them to the backplate) and the rubber parts on the slide pins don’t fair well either.  So take 100 to about 350 as very typical and at these temperatures the pads work well with the disc.  The pad is made from abrasives like silica and lubricants like carbon and together they provide stable friction through that temperature range.  The pad is fitted together with a fibre - usually steel in all our cars but higher end might use ceramics.  Ceramic probably isn’t what you think - they extrude fibres and then make the equivalent of the steel wool in our common or garden pads.  You can do the same with carbon fibre and kevlar but while these posh fibres are strong when hot, they are very expensive. All pads are moulded together by some sort of oil based resin - that’s what stinks and smokes when hot.  Under normal operation, the step based pads we use get hot enough to burn away the resin and constantly present the abrasives to the disc, as they wear they regenerate.  Now come your bit.  If they don’t get much use as in light braking or very low duty, they won’t wear away that resin and they stop wearing out.  The resin no longer gets worn away and the abrasives tend to get lost in a polished surface that gets clogged with wear debris.  You hear it called glazing but that is the next very extreme stage where the surface literally gets polished like a glass surface.  That is the “ordinary” low use effect.  Now a disc brake or a drum brake for that matter is like any other machine, if you put it in grubby environment with little use it will size up just like an old farm gate that never gets opened.  On top of that you get a lot of corrosion if moisture is present and now you can get a compounded effect of low friction, corroded surfaces and seizing up moving parts.  The end result is inevitable.  The bottom line is, you design it to work for the majority at 100 to 350 and if you take it high you burn away that resin and wear them out quick.  If you use them very light duty they shut down. If you use them as intended they work fine, the surfaces remain bright and the parts don’t seize.   

Hi Don,

Thanks for the very informative post on brakes, I am sure this will help many members to understand how brakes are designed and how they wear.

Just a couple of questions, for drivers that only do low mileage are they better taking the car for a run and applying the breaks a bit later to increase the friction and heat to prevent issues with wear. Also are ceramic breaks whilst more expensive a better option for low usage.👍

[Hybrid21]

Hi Bob, with my RAV4 I don't do many miles day to day and I am normally very gentle on the brakes anticipating as best I can.

But after reading a few posts on the forum re this I do now tend to make sure that I do give them some work to do now and then 👍

I also keep the car in ready mode when for instance sitting in the supermarket car park waiting for my wife, which I am doing now, so far been 25mins. Again after reading posts re keeping the 12v Battery charged 👍

Re ceramic brakes, I would imagine that they would be better overall but probably very expensive, and a bit over the top for your average run of the mill vehicle.

 

[Mojo1010]

Ceramic brakes and discs cost a lot of cash, €10000 a set I've read. No brake drums for me, brake discs perform much better.

[Bper]

3 hours ago, Hybrid21 said:

Hi Bob, with my RAV4 I don't do many miles day to day and I am normally very gentle on the brakes anticipating as best I can.

But after reading a few posts on the forum re this I do now tend to make sure that I do give them some work to do now and then 👍

I also keep the car in ready mode when for instance sitting in the supermarket car park waiting for my wife, which I am doing now, so far been 25mins. Again after reading posts re keeping the 12v battery charged 👍

Re ceramic brakes, I would imagine that they would be better overall but probably very expensive, and a bit over the top for your average run of the mill vehicle.

 

Hi Iain, on a daily basis we see so many cars parked that are used very infrequently as they never seem to leave the same position. So that being the case does this mean that the brakes on these cars will suffer from quicker deterioration and higher costs due to lack of use.However a number of neighbours leave cars for weeks before driving and then only some of them only do very short journeys etc.

I wonder if lack of car use and brake wear is something many people are aware of.

 

[Cyker]

It depends what you mean by ceramic brakes, but often these fancier brakes are meant for track use where they can operate at high temperatures without loss of performance.

Standard automotive brakes are actually the best kind of brake for normal use - The standard iron disc and organic pad have better 'bite' from cold than higher performance brakes.

Things like carbon-ceramics are good for track use as they have high fade resistance, but feel worse than normal brakes when stone cold. In anything with regen braking, they'd always be outside their operating temperature. They also cost more than what I paid for any of my previous cars  

You can get sintered ceramic pads that work with normal discs - The factory pad for the jappy-made Mk1 Yaris used Akebono ceramic pads which were really nice as they produced no visible dust and were always quiet, unlike whatever my Mk4 came with which is like nails on a chalkboard in summer when they've gotten hot! Not sure why Toyota moved away from them; May just be a Euro-thing as I think Toyota are forced to use a certain amount of local components and I don't think anyone makes road-use ceramic pads in Euro-land like Akebono does for japan. (Which is also why the jappy and french Mk1s had completely different brake systems! That was such a pain in the proverbial the first time I needed to get new pads for my old Mk1 D4D...! IIRC there were something like 8 different combinations!)