Prius Prime brakes.

The car will use regen to reduce use of the brakes in all modes, whether you use EV or B or not. It will also make some use of the friction brakes in all modes, even EV and B.

What can and does happen with Prius brakes, whether you use EV and B frequently or just drive normally in D, is that it makes too little use of the friction brakes to consistently remove rust after sitting in damp weather. You'll be able to recognize that condition by a rough sound and sometimes by grabby brake feel, and you can clear it right up by making about two ordinary stops from normal neighborhood speeds while shifted to N. Shifting to N disables all regen and forces the friction brakes to do the job.

After not very long this becomes second nature, you'll get in the car, pull out in the street, notice a bit of brake noise, and shift into N for your next stop or two without really even noticing yourself doing it. And there won't be any call for those $425 "cleanings".

Just don't be lulled into completely ignoring the brakes because of how trouble-free they are. I do give mine a quick once-over every time I rotate tires. I usually replace zero parts and don't even pull off the pin boots, but just make sure everything moves and feels greasy that ought to, and tuck it back in. That's the best bet for making the trouble-free-ness last as long as possible (which, in a Prius, is really long).

 

Should you want to 'exercise' the brakes, at highway speed, shift to N and then brake to a stop.

 

How much is a brake job supposed to be on a Prius prime per axle, pads and rotors? $1000 is ridiculous even for a luxury vehicle let alone the Prius.

 

$1,000.? $450.? nickels and dimes? i have a different definition

congrats on telling them to get lost, please don't ever go back there.

 

A couple weeks ago, I was in for 25k mile check up and the dealer told me break pads have about 85% life left which made sense . Agree you wouldn’t need break job after 25k miles and how much?

 

Toyota USA says to do a full brake inspection, tri-yearly or 30K miles, whichever comes first, on page 43 of your Warranty and Maintenance Booklet. And that's the bare minimum, for snow-belt: bi-yearly or 20K miles is better.

 

As I did in #2, I'll plug even more often: for me, every time I rotate tires. Just consider it inspection, I don't plan to replace anything, but if I find anything getting dodgy, I'll make a note to pick one up at the dealer and replace it the next time I'm in there. I've only had to do that now and then with the "fitting kit" (the little set of teflon-coated springs that hold the ears of the brake pads) because they can get rough and rusty and lose their slipperiness and interfere with the return of the pads, and the kit is cheap. The slide pins everybody talks about, I rarely actually take out and relube, but will slide in and out a few times by hand to make sure they feel ok. Even at 6000-mile tire rotation intervals, they will always be feeling a little stiff already just from the grease solidifying, and will be much improved after a few strokes in and out.

With regular light inspections like that, it should be downright embarrassing to have to replace any significant component like pads, let alone rotors, inside of 200,000 miles or so on a Prius. But without regular inspections it can easily happen, because some small issue that could have been caught and cheaply corrected will end up eating the pads and rotor.

 

Sounds like they just want to rip you off I have over 65,000 miles and I looked at my brakes the other day when I swapped over to my snow tires and they still look great. If it’s not broken. Don’t fix it. And if it is ask toyota Corp to fix it. They will fix something even out of warranty as a first time courtesy. They did so for me when my rain sensing wipers failed at 40k. It was the relay. And was $500.

 

With around 50K miles (80K kms), my front pads are down to around 6 mm remaining. Obviously, a 2010 with such low miles, likely more braking, comparing to a highway eater.

Considering new pad thickness is 10.5 mm, and bare minimum thickness is 1 mm, I will certainly thinking about pad replacement around 80K miles, 100K would for sure would be the longest they'd last, right down to that minimum. But that's not for me.

On the flip side, our usage keeps going down; the car itself might age out before we ever get to the pad replacement epoch, lol.

I concur regarding rotors though; think they're grossly over-replaced. Check them with a dial indicator and micrometer, just keep on top of it. I've had instances of badly rusted rotors too: a few weeks use, they cleaned right up.

 

Looking back at my numbers again, yes, your projections are better. I have a left rear that's wearing extra fast, so that will be the determining factor for the rears. Its wear rate between my two most recent checks would project out to an 85,000 mile life, if the wear were at the same rate all along. (It probably hasn't worn at that same rate all along, but more slowly until my bracket rusted the exact way it has, and if I get around to fixing that, the wear rate may decrease again.)

In front, it seems to be my inboard pad on the right that's going to wear out first, and that one's headed for a 54,000 mile life (again, that's what the life would be for a pad always wearing at the same rate this one has between my last two measurements). On my next inspection, I should look more closely why that one's wearing extra fast.

The pads that aren't wearing extra fast seem headed for roughly 100k lives at the rate they are wearing. So I guess I was a bit over the top saying 200k. Thanks for the check.

 

I replaced front the pads in my 2011 after 120K miles. they cost me around $20 (no real need for expensive pads since they last so long anyway). Took about 5 minutes per wheel.

Replacing brake pads on a car are trivially easy (once you have the wheel off it's two bolts to remove the caliper).

this is a simple job... no where near a grand.

I would write the general manager and tell him thank you, you've now permanently lost your business.

If they're going to utterly rip you off with unneeded break work, you have to think about what they're going to do to you when you really need work done and you don't have the knowledge or ability to diagnose the real problem yourself.

 

have you found any difference between regen and friction braking when it comes to driving in snow? we're getting hit hard here in seattle

 

Saw the weather map on tv the other night: storm centre over Seattle, we're just getting the fringes of it.

 

Without knowing the condition of the vehicle, it's hard to say but at 25,000 miles, they may just want to juice money out of you.

The only Prius brake issue that I know of is the seizing of caliper either due to excessively worn pads or the brake lasted so long that the piston seized. But you're looking at 65,000 miles or more for a Prius. So I may stay away from whatever that shop is. A little "dusty" doesn't need a service!

One maintenance to prevent seizing is just to lube the caliper bolts with grease every couple years. It doesn't stop it from seizing but prevents it.

 

Regen operates through the powertrain, hence acts only on the two front wheels, and demands (not quite) double the tire-to-road grip for the same braking as is needed when the friction brakes act on all four wheels. But you don't need to overthink it; the car is watching for signs of traction loss, and will switch from two to four wheels whenever needed.

Really, those couple-yearly (or more frequent) once-overs are opportunities to check more than just those sliding bolts (which often get talked about on PC as if they're the only moving or important parts of the brakes). Both of those bolts, plus the caliper piston itself, are guarded by rubber boots to keep the salt water out, and stretching all those boots out to look for holes or tears can head off trouble. Either the pins or the piston bore can begin to rust once water gets in there, and if you think the slide pins can cause significant brake drag, wait'll you see what happens when it's the piston bore (with its far larger surface area in contact with the piston).

Also, the "fitting kit", the little springy clips that support the pad ears in the slots of the mounting bracket. Those aren't lubed with anything greasy (would just be a grit magnet), but they come from the factory with a dry, Teflon-like coating so the pads slide easily in them. That wears off and the clips get rusty and grabby. They're not expensive, and in my experience, I end up swapping those at inspection time, more often than I find any other signs of trouble.

 

With four wheel braking, the front ones are doing 70% to 80% of the work, so regen just working on the front isn't something that needs much thought.

In snow, regen is like downshifting to use engine braking. There maybe and advantage as it is less likely a friction brake will grab too hard and cause the wheel to stop spinning and slide. As you mention, the car is already watching for that anyway.

The real issue facing the Prius in snow is the overly sensitive traction control, but I think the gen4 finally got an off switch for it.

 

Ed, now you know that dealership is crooked. Don't go back there again except for a warranty claim if no other dealer is close enough to you.

Mileage on brakes makes no difference. The thickness of the remaining pad material and the condition of the rotors is what counts. I can drive the interstate freeway across wide open country and use the brakes only a couple of times per tank of gas. Or I can drive a few miles in hilly city driving and use the brakes constantly. In the first case those brake parts will be good for many, many miles. In the second case they're wearing much more rapidly. Require that whoever inspects your brakes gives you the thickness of the pad material. One millimeter is really thin, and if they don't wear evenly the steel backing plate may soon damage the rotor. Two to three millimeters is a reasonable minimum thickness.

Our Primes have only the B setting for drivetrain braking, and make use of it when needed. In a conventional car do downshift on long downhill grades to protect the brakes from overheating.