Brake Pads Wear According to the Dealer

Thanks for providing the link. It's the third gen that I need.

 

The kinds of wear anomalies you mostly seem to read about on PriusChat (biased toward the pre-Gen-3s because of longer experience) include the reduced-contact-path-on-the-inboard-side issue (as I found on mine), and the still-perfectly-thick-friction-material-delaminating-from-rusted-pad-backer-and-getting-ejected-from-caliper issue.

The first sort of issue doesn't cause any kind of abrupt brake 'failure', it just brings you to an unexpectedly expensive brake repair in half the time you were bragging to all your friends it would take. Undoubtedly it does somewhat reduce your maximum braking effectiveness, not anything you'd likely notice in normal driving.

The second sort is a kind of abrupt and dramatic thing to have happen when driving, and something completely unexpected by drivers of conventional cars, whose pads never last long enough for such a thing to happen.

Prius pad sets do include wear-indicator tabs, I think on one pad of each pair. Assuming the brake mechanical condition is maintained and the pads wear evenly, that will be adequate to tell you when you need pads. The trouble is just that Prius pads last easily long enough (ceteris paribus) for various other causes of brake impairment to become the predominant ones.

-Chap

 

in the third gen, there seem to be an inordinate number of 2010's with frozen rear calipers, usually in salt area's. perhaps toyota made changes to the 2011?

 

Chap, thank you for that explanation. Would the rusted pad backer problem be more of a problem in areas that have to deal with salted roads?

 

Not my experience. I generally maintain my cars according to the factory recommendations, but then something unrelated to maintenance breaks. I'm talking about design problems like the electrical connection to the starter solenoid corroding so you can't start the car unless you know which wire to wiggle.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine had a Tercel years ago and changed the oil about every 20k miles. I remember checking it once and it was inky black. That car lasted past 100k miles without any major problems.

The point is, reliability does matter quite a bit. A well maintained lemon will break, while a well designed car will tolerate a surprising amount of neglect.

 

"The point is, reliability does matter quite a bit. A well maintained lemon will break, while a well designed car will tolerate a surprising amount of neglect."

...so the justification for neglecting a Prius is because it is designed well. Got it. Me...something that costs +$25,000 and is a safety of flight issue requires real preventative maintenance. For the record...I am a mechanic.

 

Not an airplane, but still: the potential consequences of brake failure on a car outweigh concerns of overdoing the brake maintenance.

And too: a sooner-than-later brake inspection familiarizes you with the system, helps you learn about potential weak spots.

 

Makes no difference whether it is a Prius with one soul on board or a B747 with over 300, faulty or failed brakes can result in the lost of property and persons. Yep...OCD all day long...your welcome.

 

I resemble your remark in more ways than one.

My vision acuity was deteriorating a couple years ago so I went to an optometrist for a check and new glasses. That done, I was not satisfied with my vision so I went to a different optometrist. New Rx, new glasses. If anything I was less satisfied, and now I was unsure what to do since it seemed unlikely that two optometrists in a row were incompetent.

Over the next two years or so I went to three other optometrists and told my increasingly unhappy tale. I usually ended up with an even higher diopter Rx and new glasses but no improvement. Along the way I started to notice some aspects of my vision that suggested cataracts but each optometrist in turn told me no when I suggested the diagnosis.

Six months ago I went to the most qualified optometrist I could identify who after 2 minutes said "you have cataracts!" and from examination after pupil dilation identified multiple cataracts. She politely mentioned that it was illegal for me to drive. Cataract repair of two eyes followed and I have the vision of a kid again.

I wondered why the diagnosis had taken so long to make despite my raising the possibility, and I realized that most of the problem had been my refusal through the years to let them dilate my pupils. I had no reason to think that the eye retinas were the problem so I incorrectly concluded that the pupil dilation offer was just bill padding. The best optometrist was able to see the cataracts without dilation, but I bet all the others would have too if I had agreed to dilation.

 

do you mean ophthalmologist, or do you not have them?

 

Opthamologists are medical doctors (MD) with further training in eyes. I was seen by a series of Optometrists who are 'doctors of Optometry,' (DO.) The latter are not physicians and do not practice surgery but in general receive very good training in the diagnosis and correction of refraction problems.

 

right. for some reason, our insurance requires us to see an ophthalmologist every 2 years. i haven't been to an optometrist in probably 15-20 years.

 

As you state, and as the name suggests, Opto*metrists* do measurements on the eye in order to correct vision problems, and while they're trained to check for some other conditions you shouldn't rely on them for diagnosis of anything serious.

"Optometrists are healthcare professionals who provide primary vision care ranging from sight testing and correction to the diagnosis, treatment, and management of vision changes. An optometrist is not a medical doctor."

"An ophthalmologist — Eye M.D. — is a medical or osteopathic doctor who specializes in eye and vision care. Ophthalmologists differ from optometrists and opticians in their levels of training and in what they can diagnose and treat. As a medical doctor who has completed college and at least eight years of additional medical training, an ophthalmologist is licensed to practice medicine and surgery."

 

Requires ?? That is silly, unless you have Diabetes, retinal complications from hypertension, or a specific medical problem in the eye.

 

i think you're right, but they do pay for it, so that's where i go. and that's who told me i had a cataract.

 

Okay, I'm not actually advocating neglect. Just saying that maintenance won't help if the design is crap. We've talked a lot about caliper slides here. What about brake fluid changes and inspecting the brake lines? A frozen caliper slide will cause uneven brake wear, blowing a brake line or a failing master cylinder (both have happened to me (thanks GM!)) are actually a lot worse.

 

When is the last time Toyota put a "crap" part in a car ? Are you thinking of GM ?

In a Toyota world where parts may be less than ideal but for practical purposes never "crap," maintenance makes a huge difference. The only time I hear Toyota car owners complain of "crap" parts is when they want to deflect blame from themselves.

 

agreed, that's all supposed to be done by the dealer. i'm sure some do, and some don't. it's tough for the consumer, it pays to be knowledgable, that's why i choose frodoz #3.

 

I am a big believer in doing much more than Toyota's "minimum recommendations" per the owners manual. The brake fluid used in the Prius is DOT3...not some magical Toyota Prius lifetime fluid...and should be changed/flushed every 2/3 years. Aside from faulty parts (GM or whoever), fluid contamination is the biggest culprit to car or light trucks hydraulic component failures.

 

If you like their company by all means go for a visit. Otherwise forget about it until they tell you less than 4 mm, and then go look yourself.

On other hand, lubing the pins every 50k miles or so is not a bad idea.