Rear brakes are wearing out every couple of thousand miles. What am I missing

Rear caliper pin rubber damper pictured here at the 5:08 mark .....

 

I stand corrected. Three years, not enough brain cells, lol.

And thanks for your patience.

 

No Problem! .....it's all good! ......

 

Interesting, so those slide pins have rubber doodads on the ends.

And a chief distinction of Toyota's pink, lithium soap based glycol "rubber grease" is that it's formulated not to swell or distort Toyota's rubber compounds.

And lots of people post about using other grease choices from the FLAPS when re-lubing slide pins.

And there seem to be some cars where the pins aren't sliding well, despite being relubed ... and discussion of taking the rubber off ....

I wonder ....

-Chap

 

I'll be taking the rears apart this fall. I used Sil-Glyde on them, it'll be about 3.5 years this fall.

 

Ughhh. I ordered new pins, boots and caliper bolts in May 2016 and installed them around the same time. The pins/boots/bolts were OEM Toyota parts, and I put new pads on at the same time. I noticed that my drivers side rear caliper was dragging last week after driving home (I usually notice the dragging because I smell the "hot brake smell" - and I felt the rim and it was very warm).

I am getting tired of having to do this brake "lube" job every year (about 12k miles). I wish I could remember which part it came with, but either the boots or the pins had these new "dampers" included. It does seem like that part tends to act like a seal/O-ring inside the blind hole in the caliper, and when greased, this creates some pressure/vacuum in there that prevents free movement. If you use too much grease, the internal pressure can pop the boot right off the assembly when the pin is pressed into the hole. I am considering removing that damper when I pull the wheels and lube the pins again.

I like the Nutz about Bolts video where he says "i don't know what this part is called, but it's important".

 

It looks like the first pin he pulled out had the damper, but the second pin did not. I tried to pull up those pins on the Mid-Atlantic toyota parts web site (where i bought the rear pins) and they are not shown as separately orderable parts. They are only shown as part of the caliper assembly. The exploded view of the caliper sort of looks like the lower one has the bushing and the upper pin does not.

 

I just found them on autozone's site, and the front kit does seem to show two pins with grommet slots and two with the slot. The associated hardware kit has just two dampers. The rears show 4 identical pins (with the slots for the dampers).

Odd.

 

These are my front pins, first time I pulled them. I forget now which is lower vs upper. There was no rubber on the one with the circumferential groove. I kinda doubt there's a rubber bit down inside the caliper, can't see it pulling off that easy. I've had them out once since, just recently, everything seemed fine, pads wearing uniformly.

The car was brand new when we got it, 10 km on the odometer. Nobody else could have been at the brakes.



(I didn't take pictures of the rear pins, guess I should have, lol. I'm predicting this fall to look at the rears, since it'll be 3 years, they're a bit out of sync. But if I've got time on my hands and get real curious I might do it sooner.)

 

Are you guys aware there is TSB with revised rear brake pads? The mothership is aware of the rear brake problems. Maybe they fixed it in the new generation? Would be fun to compare part numbers and compatibility.

Agree with Mendel front pins are naked without rubber. One of the rear ones has something in the groove IIRC.i always remove them one by one for greasing to avoid mix ups.

 

Yes, that is the damper, that I removed......both myself & my rear brakes are now "Happy/Campers"

 

Yes, sir.

 

I looked up the old and new part numbers when that was in the news. The only noticeable difference with the new pads, at least what I could see, was a larger beveled area, at the ends. FWIW, when I replaced rear pads I believe what I got is original part numbers. I just went to dealership parts department, told them what I need, they looked up the parts numbers:

PAD SET, BRAKE 04466-76012
SHIM KIT, BRAKE 04946-47070

(I decided to replace because I had messed up that brake pad pin and piston spoke orientation, had bad, uneven wear. That was about 3 years back, and they've been fine since, learned my lesson.)

 

Ditto.......Same here

 

IMHO......The only explanation I can come up with for the video in post #68;.......someone has previously installed after/market dampers

 

here are my pictures and the whole write-up: Breaks inspection: my observations and surprises. | PriusChat

front (new grease on the right):



rear:


at that time I was actually surprised the lower front pin had no rubber bushings like my other toyota cars. maybe they forgot to put them at the factory?