Replace front brakes and rotors at 43,000 miles??

It does push the pads up to the discs on the front, but on the UK/EU Prius it does not work for the rear disc brakes.

John (Britprius)

 

The mechanic should have already come in for the day. So if that happened to me, I'd show up unannounced in the lobby, and ask in person. Make them squirm face-to-face.

 

It's far from the worst dealer infraction I've ever heard of, but this is precisely why I can't suggest that anyone take their car to a dealer for regular service outside of the warranty period. Find a trustworthy independent and treat them well.

Dealer service departments exist to drum up business. Changing pads at this interval is common for most cars, so they probably get away with it as few Prius owners know the difference. That's a big money maker if they can do that a few dozen times a year and get away with it. I'd pressure them on the '90%' used point and make them eat 1/2 of the cost.

 

I'd take this up with the service manager and, if she bought the car there, her salesman. He wants her repeat business and referrals and should know that the service department is jeopardizing that.

You go to the dealer for honest, trustworthy advice and she was simply lied to here to generate a repair. I just looked up the sevice limits on Alldata. New pads are 11.0 mm thick, and the minimum is 1.0 mm. 4.5mm is about 35% life left (3.5 mm of 10.0 mm usable). Ask to see those stats from the Toyota manual. I'd want to know the specs on the rotor too. Of course it's now gone, but they have a new spec of 22.0mm and a minimum of 20.0 mm. Ask what did her's measure?

I wouldn't ask for half off, I'd demand a refund. They took advantage of her ignorance and lied to her about the condition of her brakes. The repair simply was unnecessary. If they want to put her old parts back on, tell them that they can (they won't). At the very least, I'd want the labor refunded.

This is a major pet peeve of mine, brakes are a huge profit center for dealers and I suspect they routinely replace perfectly good parts simply because they owners don't know better. A brake pad will perform just as well throughout its service limits, assuming the rest of the system is fine, and there's no reason to replace them early.

The rear brakes on my Mazda3 went 95K miles, the fronts about 105K and were still not to the limits. All rotors still measured within spec and were not replaced. I drive a lot of highway miles, but also tend to drive rather hard in general.

 

I had MINT REQUIRED" light on my dash board for about a week now. went to local Toyota dealer but there was 2 hours wait. so I went to local mechanic. he changed oil and I was talking to him about a vibration (on my 04 with 84.900 miles) I have, when i go over 55mph on highway. he said you need a wheel balance which i ended up doing. but then he saw my pads and rotors. he told me that rotors are rusty and that did ask me if i feel a grinding noise when i brake. I don't actually. he suggested that I had to do brakes. change pads, rotor, caliper hangers. all + work for 336$. I knew I had regen-brakes and that this is something typical of priuses. I declined the job on front brakes and did only cleaning and adjusting of rear brakes.
now reading this thread i know i have saved my self some money.
maybe I will try to drive it up to 40mph and put the car in neutral and brake. I will clean the rotors this way and go back later to the mechanic and tell him my Prius did the work.

 

Honestly people, it's entirely possible for a 9 year old car to have rotors badly enough rusted that they'll cause problems like this. Particularly in areas that salt the roads.

This is where the prevalence of West Coast experts gets a little frustrating.