Rear Brake pad change when?

a brake service isn't a bad idea. but it should include a thorough inspection and lubrication of the caliper pins. maybe a good look at the emergency brake. cost: maybe the one hour minimum at most?
the fact that the other dealer isn't recommending anything says that either they're fine, or they haven't looked.
ask the recommending dealer what the service includes, and come back with the list. the pads have a minimum thickness spec before replacement, and rotors are more visual for grooving.

 

way more. most i have seen for an hour is $120. $375. is closing in on new pads and rotors.

 

sounds like a plan, don't do anything rash.

 

that's a good price, if you need them.

 

I think the pads are about 65 dollars per set -- I have both sets waiting to be installed ... I have been waiting for two years. Car now has 158k. I bought them based on past experience -- non hybrid.

The minimum thickness in one manual is 2mm in another is 1mm -- Since the Prius is so easy on brakes -- 1mm is thousands of miles.

There is no reason to replace them early .. with the miles we put on the car the wheels come off a couple times a year when it's in for the oil change == they check and spray the pins. never any issues.

 

Here's a picture of the front and rear pads on our 2010 Prius II when I lined the pins a couple of weeks ago. These are the original pads at 142 k miles.

Front pads;


Rear pads:


If they are saying to replace the pads, I would question it. With regen braking, the pads should see little wear. Remember the dealers are independents and are a business and it is okay to question and refuse their suggestions if they seem unreasonable.

 

I might be an outlier here, I know that not everybody has any interest in DIYing anything. But I would surely say changing a tire (not dismounting tire from wheel, just getting wheel off of car and back on) ought to be in every driver's skill set, and even practiced from time to time ... and, honestly, it's only one small step further in mechanical skill to give those calipers and pads a quick glance and push/pull the slide pins a few times for good measure.* Then you always have a pretty good idea what shape your brakes are in, and you don't have to take somebody else's word about such an important system on your car.

Not a bad idea to check once or twice a year or so. Ordinarily, the Prius brakes go trouble-free for ages, but one could get sticky or grotty for unexpected reasons, and if you catch that before too long, you can just clean it up and be back to trouble-free.

-Chap

* just one Prius-specific caveat though: the car can get the idea to do brake self-tests at unexpected times, even when it's "off". Be sure you've learned how to make it not do that, before getting your hands in there.

 

What's your location? Assuming US:

A few years back I tried to summarize the US maintenance schedule in a table format. It recommends a "visual" inspection of the brakes every 6 months or 5000 miles, basically at every service interval. And an in-depth brake inspection every 3 years or 30,000 miles.

The latter would entail pulling off the caliper, inspecting, cleaning and lubing the pads, checking disc condition, thickness, parallelism and runout, and lubrication of the caliper pins.

That in-depth inspection would be for all four corners btw. Without pad (& shim set) replacement, I'd say something around $250 would be reasonable, and if either front or rear pad were low enough, (say 2mm or less remaining thickness), an extra $100 or so.

Keep in mind if you go through a brake inspection, and remaining pad thickness is something like 3mm, it may make sense to replace them anyway, they haven't got far to go.

 

Your brakes consist of pads which press against metal discs to slow your car. In a Prius, the transmission also slows the car, so its common for the brake pads to last 200,000 miles. But it depends how you drive.

A mechanic is supposed to inspect the brake pads to see how much the material has worn down. It's very easy to do. There is a cut right in the center of the pad that you look at, and if there's still material above that cut, the pads are still fine.

There's no magic here; any mechanic can inspect disc brakes. However, the people who work at Costco, Sears, Wal-Mart and the Quick Oil Changer shops are not mechanics, they are flunkies who got a few hours of training at a very specific task. Never take your car to those places except for tires, and if the tire change guy tells you that you need new struts, ignore his upsell attempt.

 

All brake pads have wear indicators. When you rotate tires, you should take a look at them. Ideally, you might just go ahead and do all four wheels at one time once one really needs it...just to have it all done at one time.

 

The one thing you really want to do is have the brake caliper pins lubed. Not so much in California perhaps, but in the salt belt often! It can get so bad (corrosion) that they can't get the parts off!
Even "clean water" can cause problems. I washed Pearl S last week and parked her in the garage (unheated). It's still "warm" here so she didn't totally dry for a few days (the carpeted mats are still wet after a week). I park her with the "P" brake on. Habit. When I tried to back her out on Friday the pads were stuck to the disks, so a "quiet bang", then go.

 

Definitely! I did mine for the first time at 80K and they were dry as bones. And all the times the car went to the dealer for oil change + "inspections," they clearly never lubricated these pins. I packed mine full of as much grease as I could.

 

I do not know if I'm just fastidious, but what I like to do to is disassemble the pads and shims, clean all pieces, apply thin anti-seize layer wherever one items contacts another.

So that's shim to back of pad, shim to shim (often there's two layers of shims), piston to shim and caliper "fingers" to shim. All the points of contact. Always apply the anti-seize to the smaller of the two points of contact, that way you get it just where needed.

You can also pull out, clean and reinstall the anti-rattle clips (brass spring bits that are pushed into caliper recesses at the two ends of the clips, but without removing the disc that tends to be a pain. I usually just let 'em be.

I'll also sometimes dress the disc with fine steel wool, and run the pads' friction face over a piece of sand paper a bit.