My brake shoes look great at 150k!

Wow!

That's amazing.

 

pads, and thank you warm climate. the battery may hate it, but the brakes are happy!

 

Make sure to check the pad on the opposite side - just incase the wear is uneven.

 

Good to hear! Thanks for mentioning the 2006 brakes.

 

I'd expect so since disc brakes use PADS.

 

Even if the pads have lots of thickness, it's worthwhile perdiodically to pull them out, inspecting the caliper pins, and so on.

(I'm kind of gobsmacked by your miles accumulated. We're at 47000~ kilometers, and usage actually declining. Starting to wonder why we have a Prius, lol.)

 

I checked the front pads on our '04 Prius at 170k miles before my daughter took ownership and found about 8 mm left

Unfortunately there was a detail I did not understand in pulling out the caliper pin so the re-greasing was not done. Next time.

 

That's pretty impressive.
I have a fairly heavy foot so I am down to 3mm on my front pads after 93k. My rears are still doing fine at 6mm.

But quite frankly, brakes are so inexpensive to replace that it's hardly a selling point, IMO.

 

You can save a couple thousand dollars on brake service on hybrids vs none hybrids during the life of the vehicle. So yeah, I'd use it as a selling point. The brakes will probably outlast the hybrid battery.

 

+1, LOL!

 

Prius brakes are absolutely amazing. My 2015 Gen 3 has 123k miles on it. The only issue I've had with it is that the 12V died - easy fix. Recently I noticed that the brake pedal felt a little soft. I decided to replace the pads on the front. The rears looked like they have a little more meat on them. But the fronts were worn down pretty much to the limit - 123k miles on one set of pads is incredible..

BTW - there was some uneven wear - the caliper slides needed grease.

I replace the the pads with Wagner Ceramic from Amazon. I didn't touch the rotors. They looked fine. No problems.

My logic with rotors is this - if you're not experiencing any pulsating or other rotor symptoms, and your rotors look and feel true, then leave them alone. A nice set of Toyota factory rotors are better than a cheap aftermarket set. If I'm wrong and I ultimately end up needing to replace the rotors it's not a huge job to do it - but this has never happened. The new pads conform to the old rotors.

So the total cost of my front end brake job was $23. The rears will be a little tougher because I'll have to buy that square tool to screw the pistons in. That doesn't look fun on YouTube. Maybe I'll get 150k out of my rear pads.

 

If you do the work yourself, I agree, brakes are very cheap. But most people spend $300-$500 per axle even when they don't get skinned alive. If they fall for the old "You have a sticky caliper routine" it can get very expensive. Brake job thefts are probably the most common thefts in the motoring world

 

You could rent the brake tool from autozone. Mine were easy to do.
I was going to replace them, but after I had them out, they were almost as thick as the new ones,
so I cleaned and lubed the pins, put new paste on the pads after cleaning off the old stuff.
That was 50,000 miles ago. At almost 189,000 miles I think it's time to replace them.

Either way, they are super easy to do.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been nervous about it, but now I feel more confident. Wow - 189K!!!!

 

Windstrings, so your brake accumulator pump is still original? No major component failures along the way?

I worry about that brake pump because I can hear it cycling on every time I get in the car - it's the first thing I hear. Mine sounds ok so far.

If I get 287k miles out of my gen 3 I'll be very happy. Attached are my front brake pad pics after 123k. My miles are mostly highway.