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

Try following the instructions in this thread first:

https://priuschat.com/index.php?threads/127656/

 

If he's in there lubing the pins it'll be with the calliper off, might as well get the piston oriented right.

 

i think he nailed it. there's nothing 'hybrid' about the brakes at that end of the system. driving in boston area means tons of salt, and requires constant vigilance/ keep the pins lubed, and you should be fine.

 

For the brakes to operate properly the caliper has to be able to move side-to-side on the rotor. That's made possible by properly lubricated and sliding pins. What does your mechanic say about the pin condition?

BTW: Toyota USA recommends 30K miles or 36 months to do this.

 

the '05 has rear drums, not an issue. one of toyota's biggest blunders was to go to disk brakes in the rear.

 

the problem is, rear brakes don't get much of a workout compared to front. with 4 wheel disks, the rear always suffers.

 

FWIW.......we each (wife & I) have a 2010 gen. 3.......I could lube the pins weekly & the pads still would not wear evenly (both vehicles)......when I would pull the pins they would be "Stuck" (with lots of lube)......finally removed the pin rubber dampers; (front caliper pins don't use) decided they were to much an interference/fit & were literally sticking to the bore in spite of the lube.......uneven pad wear issue solved.......YMMV

 

Aren't you rotating tires more often than 30K anyway? When the wheels are off, just move the calipers back and forth.

I find my pins will get just a little bit ... glopped in place ... in the time between rotations. The ordinary motion of the caliper during braking is so slight, they really don't move much, and the grease gets a bit hard. Just slide them in and out a couple times, grease loosens up, you can feel whether they seem juicy or dry, if they don't feel dry or rough, you're done.

You don't even need a wrench for this. The rotor just sits on the hub; nothing holds it there with the wheel off (except, often, rust). You can slide the caliper back and forth enough to loosen gloppy grease without even undoing the bolts, just by letting the rotor wiggle too.

If the rotor's too stuck with rust, you might need to loosen it with M8x1.25 bolts into its loosening holes. If you wiggle it during tire rotations, though, it may never get that stuck.

But, back to this particular thread ... stuck pins aren't the only way for a caliper to drag. If the pins look fine and it drags anyway, then some attention to the free motion and return of the piston could be needed.

-Chap

 

Still, if one pad is wearing like crazy, and the other is like new, it seems to me it must be caliper not "floating" properly. Somehow. Maybe a clue: it is the pad on the opposite side from the piston. Something is going on.

 

And if the pad, on the dead side of the caliper, is wearing unevenly (I'm taking that to mean, "in some weird angle or pattern", not just "a different amount than the other pad"), and it keeps happening after replacements ... then basic mechanical questions might come up, like, are the bracket, axle, and/or hub bent in some way and not properly aligned ... could the bracket have been removed at one time and replaced with a piece of grot between the mounting surfaces? ... that kind of thing.

-Chap

 

Looks like maybe one pin is hanging up. See the pic of the pads up the page: the wear all on one pad, AND beveled end-to-end.