Gen II Brake Life - 83K+?

As a new owner, I just got my 2009 Pkg 3 last week, where do I look to see the regeneration current value?

 

Not only is it normal on a Prius, it is also possible on pre-hybrids, depending on driving conditions and style. My two most recent pre-hybrids went just over 100k and 90k on their original pads. The wife did slightly better on her car, despite a higher fraction of city driving than I put on mine.

 

I use a ScanGauge. Not sure if the diagnostic screen on the MFD would show it.

 

i have 120000miles on my 04 with the original pads still in use...we had just pulled them off to replace wheel bearing and they still have about 1/2 the life left in them...we do city/country driving about 50/50

 

You can, w/ the addition of another guage. Our hybrid Lexus (I think the hyhi has 'em too) power meter shows regen amount. It wouldn't be too terribly difficult to add one to the Prius, if you absolutely had to have one.

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That's an interesting Prius info. Brake pads last longer than the wheel bearing!

 

WAY longer.

I had my driver side front bearing replaced a week ago at 94K. Started making noise 2 weeks earlier. On and off, usually more in the first 10 minutes of driving but sometimes really ugly any time for a few seconds. Fortunately I had no long trips in those 2 weeks, nothing more than 10 miles per trip, mostly 40 MPH and under. They noted 40% wear on the front pads, 20% on the rear. So I figure my pads will be good for 175K to 200K miles.

I was kinda hoping the noise was just the TripleTreds wearing (about 70K miles and down to the wear bars) so I brought in the OEMs to put on the summer rims. They have maybe 7K miles and I don't like them but can't really afford to buy new summer tires right now.

They said I had a bad bearing (yeah, in my heart, I was pretty sure it was a bearing but a guy's wallet can HOPE, yes??), he even showed me the 'push/pull' test and yeah I could see movement from 20 feet away.

On the sheet it was noted that he did not drive the car prior to replacing the bearing, noise gone during test drive. Specifically used the word "gone". Only HE never heard it. If you don't hear a scraping noise after bearing replacement AND you didn't hear it before replacement, was it really there? He was right though, no noise with the new bearing and OEM tires.

 

Come to think of it.... It is amazing that the brake pads would last through 3-5 set of tires.

 

Or, put another way, Prius brake pads last longer than most marriages!

 

I have 135,000 miles on my '04, dealer indicated at oil change, last week, that I have 65% of my brakes remaining on both front and rear...however, a few months ago I also had the front driver's side wheel bearing replaced (first repair ever) and I was shocked at the cost, dealer wanted $600 or so, eventually charged me $400, as a "personal favor" (don't ask me, I don't even know the guy). I think I'll stop reading this particular forum, however...too many scary things have been reported as going wrong...back to modifications.

 

Ehh, I'd say not. That makes it too easy to misjudge the situation and force you to use the friction brakes more near the end.

 

My '95 Lexus SC400 has only had it's brake pads changed once in it's 284K mile life. I've flushed the brake fluid 3 times though with mobil 1.

 

Close to factory-thickness meat on mine, front and rear, at
110+ K so far. I'm continuing to be mildly paranoid about wheel
bearings but haven't detected any play in any of them yet.
.
Long, *even* braking is the best strategy for collecting regen,
as it keeps battery currents low and steady like a good charging
algorithm. It takes a little more planning ahead but if you look
where the stop point ultimately will be [which may be a moving
target in traffic!] and modulate foot pressure to meet that,
it works well.
.
_H*

 

I have a 2004 Prius w/ 83000 miles. I just checked the right front brake pads and found that I've used only 50 percent of the allowable wear!!! This would suggest approx 165 k miles life. I did notice a bit of uneven wear on the pads on the inner and outer edges, due apparently to rust on the extremes of the rotor, presumably due to Pittsburgh's winter salted roads. This long life may be due to the use of ceramic pads? I picked up a new set of pads at my local auto parts place and they said they were OEM equivalents --ceramic. I have since taken the new pads back to the parts supplier for a refund--figured I'd be trading the car before needing them.

 

The pads are organic material, not ceramic. Organic works well when cold - which the Prius friction brakes always are - but deteriorate with higher temperatures from long braking. This is why they don't do well in some testers' repeated hard braking tests. Ceramics hold up to the heat better, but basically don't work when the brakes are cold.

The reason that the Prius friction brakes are always cold, and why they last so long, is that regenerative braking does so much of the work. You can get pretty good rates of deceleration just from regen braking alone - I have a spreadsheet which approximates the time to stop from 70mph as 20 seconds, using 25kW of regen, allowing for wind resistance (12-14kW at 70mph), and 5kW of other losses (transmission losses, rolling resistance). If you don't brake hard or sharply, the friction brakes come in only at around 7mph. At this speed the wheels have usually not even completed one rotation before stopping.

The brakes are massively overengineered for average use, because they have to be able to support emergency braking from 100+ mph. That means that the brake pads are actually a harder material than you'd probably want for the regular braking behaviour.