May have been fleeced by the dealer - what else to look out for?

I haven't had a dealership work on brakes, apart from brake fluid replacements, in maybe a decade. The last front and back brake job I had done, and that was with rear drum brakes, was around $400. Typically that was without pad/shoe replacement, purely disassemble, inspect, relube and reassemble. Considering inflation, and the machining, not out of line.

You hear about "brake inspections" for a lot less, but they can be just a cursory look over while they're rotating your tires.

 

If it helps you at all? I'd almost look at this as a "It's Too Late Now" scenario.

The dealership presented a diagnosis, and a remedy, and executed that remedy (hopefully if they were honest). You've paid. You can't now get a second opinion or look at the rotors yourself. Or you could but they have been machined so any evidence of what condition they were in previously is pretty much gone.

I don't think what they charged you for the service was particularly out of line, my only question would of been why you need that level of service at this point. That's a lot of brake/rust damage for a 3 year old vehicle. If you have been taking it their all along? Surprised nobody saw this coming.

When I have taken my Prius in for the "free" Toyota Care, which isn't much in tangible reality but tire rotation and oil change, they have "reportedly" inspected the brakes. In fact, I'm given a nice full color print out of all the things they supposedly inspect, with green, yellow and red warning symbols as far as condition and maintenance need.

I would be surprised if that level of damage could happen very quickly.

But it really is too late now.

Had you noticed any problems with your brakes before this?

I think it's past the point of you easily questioning this with the dealership or getting any remedy. If you feel The Dealership fleeced you? About your only recourse is to try a different dealership next time. I have gone online at looked up reviews. There can be quite a discrepancy between satisfaction and reviews. For various reasons, I became unhappy very early on with my purchasing dealerships service. I went online and looked up reviews for Toyota Dealerships in my area, (luckily I live around an area populated enough where there are numerous choices) and I switched. So far? The "new" dealership has been fine.

Considering switching dealerships might be my only recommendation, outside of always asking for an estimate first, and before giving the OK for any work, making sure you feel good about it, and even perhaps have been shown the supposed damage.

But it's too late for that now. So hopefully enjoy your newly machined brake rotors.

I'm also curious as to what they said they did to make up the $250 dollars additional they charged you.

 

You got fleeced, period

 

What are your driving habits? 20,000 miles in three years sounds like a lot of short trips or the car is parked for long periods. Salt on the roads? My 2012 v3 has105k miles with no brake work but I am down south, driving distance most days and no salt. Rust in itself is no big deal. Some minor grooving is expected but absent noise, grabbing or completely worn pads I would have left it alone.

 

It has already been done so I would not worry about it now. If the same thing would happen in the future I would just tell the service person that I could not have it done "today". I would then take the car to another dealer and get another opinion. Like Mendel said, with inflation, your dealer may not have been overpriced. Even before reading your post, I have a 2014 Avalon with 14,000 miles on it and I am wondering how much my first brake job will cost me. I may not need one for sometime but I am still concerned about it. Wouldn't surprise me if it will cost about what you paid. We all know we have a lot of inflation although it is supposed to be practically non-existent.

 

in the future, i would tell the dealer to stick to the owners manual maintenance schedule, and call you if they find something that requires your attention, before forging ahead with the fleecing. all the best!

the rear brakes on the gen III can freeze up from salt rust and wear prematurely, although, 20,000 miles is very premature. the slide pins need to be lubricated, but toy doesn't have it in their maint. schedule, just inspection. the great thing about high tech is, the mechanic can email you an image, when you can't make it in person.

 

Do you know of an honest brake shop, I do, but it's in Santa Monica, California. I would ask friends and neighbors for the name of a good independent brake shop, and have all non warranty, non hybrid work done by independent repair shops. You could usually do better at anyplace other than a dealership, they have a lot of overhead to pay for.

 

Scored and rusty rotors can be a sign of misaligned pads. The rears are in particular prone to misalignment, due to a pin on the inner pad backing plate that must be solidly locked between the piston spokes, for the parking brake to operate properly.

We had an accident necessitating replacement of the rear cross beam, and I suspect we had rear pad misalignment from then on. I found significant scoring, and partial no-contact zone on the inside, as evidenced by the inner half of the rotor surface being rusty.

What I did was replace the pads with new, remove, steel wool and re-install the rotors. No machining. For the first few weeks they sounded pretty rough, gradually improved. The rotors now look completely cured.

I guess what I'm saying is: machining rotors can be treated a symptom, missing the cause.

First thing I noticed, the rear rotor scoring:
(excuse the picture mis-rotations)



An inner rear pad, only 50% making contact:



What the inside face of rotor looked like:



Rear caliper piston spoke pattern:



Chewed up pin on inner pad backing plate:


Sorry for the slide show.

Also, for the front disc brakes, they seem a lot more dependable, even less likely to warrant machining. I did the fronts on ours as well, they were in pretty good shape, rotors ok. Maybe if you're in the snow belt?

Here's a current pic of that same rotor, shown above. Taken just now.

 

i would hope that that wouldn't happen from the factory, but anything is possible i suppose.

 

I'd disagree that calliper pin lube is not in the schedule. The schedule calls for brake service, sometimes a visual inspection, sometimes a more complete inspection.

The latter is outlined in the repair manual, includes removal of caliber and pad clean up and check, clean and lube calliper pins, check of thickness and parallelism of rotor. The whole nine yards.

Trouble is I think, some dealerships are cutting corners. And part of the reason might be the sorry state of the Toyota repair manual. Nowhere does it use the wording in the maintenance schedule, say "hey, this is brake inspection, these specific actions are what you do". It's devoid of almost all language.

 

okay, but i don't see how you translate inspection into lubrication.

 

It might happen. The inner rear pad backing plate pin needs to be solidly locked in between the spoke. This is accomplished by positioning everything right, assemble, and THEN depressing the brake multiple time, to build up pressure, lock that pin.

If OTOH, it's assembled, and the next thing to happen is the parking brake slammed on, a lever attempts to turn one of two things: the whole piston, or a screw inside it.

The latter is good; the former not so good. If the piston does turn, due to pin not firmly seated, you end up with the pin riding up on a spoke, the pad skewed, uneven pressure. Like my first pics.

Still, I suspect my case happened when our rear cross beam was replaced, not from the factory.

Toyota's design is finicky though, too easy to screw up.

 

I would find another dealer.

 

I'd lay it on Toyota's doorstep: The Repair Manual shows the whole dang tear down. It actually goes all the way down to popping out the piston, piston ring replacement, which you wouldn't do. I guess I'm relying on my Honda decades, what the dealerships did. And it was outlined in their Shop Manuals. Maybe there's more doc's than the "Repair Manual", I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah, an inspection, across manufacturers, traditionally involves some relube: the faying surfaces between pad backs and shims and caliper/piston get anti-seize compound (molybdenum suspension) and the caliper pins get a Vaseline like grease, Sil-Glyde is one North American source.

 

there is no inflation.

 

The questions in my mind are:
- Were you offered the chance to view the before condition on which the diagnosis was made? If you were and declined saying OK, go ahead, then no complaint.
- Were you offered a quote before the brake work was done so you knew what the bill would be? If you said yes, again no complaint.

I get a quote for the standard service prior to leaving the car and any deviation beyond 10% has to be approved in advance both what will be done and how much it will cost. The quote is signed by the owner of the car prior to the service being done. If a service department doesn't do both (advance quote and deviation approved), they are not going to get my future service money and they may be violating either state law or Toyota policy.

Their standard "approve the service agreement" which I sign at drop off contains these terms and conditions, BTW.

 

1. customer goes to dealer with complaint about brakes
2. dealers says we'll check it out
3. tech sees a little rust on the rotors and thinks he can make some money or simply give it back to the customer and not make money.
4. tech says, I'll make some money today........
5. tells customer there's an issue with the brakes and rust build up, must remedy for the quoted fleecing price.
6. customer unaware agrees to said fleecing price.
7. dealer did their job in fixing the concern the customer presented......by fleecing the customer's wallet.