Overheard at Toyota

[bobbob]

Service person tells customer "we may as well do the rear brakes on your Tacoma when we do
the fronts." I felt bad for the customer that believed it should be done. I gave the service
guy the "Stinkeye" and just shook my head. He got it!

 

[19jacobob93]

I was reading about a guy who was heading for 1,000,000 miles in his Tacoma. Not sure if he made it but one thing I remember is that he first replaced his rear brakes at around 400,000 miles after owning it since new!
My rears are 14 years and 190k old but are starting to scream haha

 

[Donald]

Well lets hope they really do them if the customer gets charged for them.

 

[demarpaint]

You mean a friendly neighborhood Toyota dealer might be trying to screw a customer who has their vehicle in for service? No way!!!! That doesn't happen. LOL I'm just having some fun that's all.

 

[eljefino]

To be fair, this is a franchised dealer owned by someone other than Toyota or Toyota of North America.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
To be fair, this is a franchised dealer owned by someone other than Toyota or Toyota of North America.



This is true. Sadly it's true for so many franchised dealerships across the USA.

 

[Falken]

Sad.

I only advocate an early rear brake job if you are 1 year past the lifetime that you plan to keep the car.

This is only to lessen the chance of a wheel cylinder leaking while you are doing the brake job, and the rear brakes should then last the rest of the life of the car.

If you milk the rear brakes, you might be stuck with a higher repair bill to only then need a rear set of brakes on an 8 or 9 year old car only to scrap it a year or two later.

So a bit early is ok, like a year or two.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: eljefino
To be fair, this is a franchised dealer owned by someone other than Toyota or Toyota of North America.



This is true. Sadly it's true for so many franchised dealerships across the USA.


But..these franchise dealerships are so important to the community...or so it's argued by the lobby who opposes Tesla's sales model of not using dealerships.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: BMWTurboDzl
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: eljefino
To be fair, this is a franchised dealer owned by someone other than Toyota or Toyota of North America.



This is true. Sadly it's true for so many franchised dealerships across the USA.


But..these franchise dealerships are so important to the community...or so it's argued by the lobby who opposes Tesla's sales model of not using dealerships.


LOL They're important to the employees of the dealerships, and the owner raking in the cash.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Falken
Sad.

I only advocate an early rear brake job if you are 1 year past the lifetime that you plan to keep the car.

This is only to lessen the chance of a wheel cylinder leaking while you are doing the brake job, and the rear brakes should then last the rest of the life of the car.

If you milk the rear brakes, you might be stuck with a higher repair bill to only then need a rear set of brakes on an 8 or 9 year old car only to scrap it a year or two later.

So a bit early is ok, like a year or two.


I think you generalize too much. My vintage Jetta is well known for wearing rear brake pads at a rate of 2x the front pads. They are also known for needing new calipers at brake time (something about the rear calipers, they just plain get sticky).

Brake jobs are cheap. Doing brakes one year and scrapping the next is vastly better than not and having a collision one year prior to (planned) scrappage. Milk as many years/miles out of it for lowest running costs.

Although why would an 8/9 year old car be ready for the scrap heap?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: Falken
Sad.

I only advocate an early rear brake job if you are 1 year past the lifetime that you plan to keep the car.

This is only to lessen the chance of a wheel cylinder leaking while you are doing the brake job, and the rear brakes should then last the rest of the life of the car.

If you milk the rear brakes, you might be stuck with a higher repair bill to only then need a rear set of brakes on an 8 or 9 year old car only to scrap it a year or two later.

So a bit early is ok, like a year or two.


I think you generalize too much. My vintage Jetta is well known for wearing rear brake pads at a rate of 2x the front pads. They are also known for needing new calipers at brake time (something about the rear calipers, they just plain get sticky).

Brake jobs are cheap. Doing brakes one year and scrapping the next is vastly better than not and having a collision one year prior to (planned) scrappage. Milk as many years/miles out of it for lowest running costs.

Although why would an 8/9 year old car be ready for the scrap heap?


Brake jobs are cheap if you do them yourself. I bought the entire hardware kit (auto adjusters included) for my Cherokee for $15. Shoes were $15.

I will be replacing the front rotors and pads on the Focus with not-bottom-of-the-barrel parts for under $100 this spring.

But if you have someone do it ... it is not cheap.

Sunday, a friend brought his Accord by because it was making a noise. Turns out the pads were completely gone and starting to eat into the rotor. It has the integrated parking brake, so the piston is threaded. The piston won't go back in so he has to have it go to a shop. That's going to be mucho dinero.

 

[Sayjac]

Looks like Tacoma still uses rear drum and owning an 01, they do last a long long time, much longer than front pads. And IME drums are more expensive to have replaced because of labor.

In the case of the stealer(and some other service places), an uninformed or unsophisticated customer is their best friend.

As always, caveat emptor.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
But if you have someone do it ... it is not cheap.

Sunday, a friend brought his Accord by because it was making a noise. Turns out the pads were completely gone and starting to eat into the rotor. It has the integrated parking brake, so the piston is threaded. The piston won't go back in so he has to have it go to a shop. That's going to be mucho dinero.


I guess after owning a VW for years I no longer think dropping $500 on a repair as "expensive", just typical. I forget what rear brakes on mine where when I paid, but it should only be like 2hr to replace calipers and all hardware, both sides, I'd think. $150-200 labor, plus what $200 in parts? Under $500. Cheap. LOL.

Last time I did brakes I did find that the piston wouldn't turn in (common) and so I simply bought two new calipers ($105/each? something like that) and swapped 'em out.

 

[HangFire]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
Sunday, a friend brought his Accord by because it was making a noise. Turns out the pads were completely gone and starting to eat into the rotor. It has the integrated parking brake, so the piston is threaded. The piston won't go back in so he has to have it go to a shop. That's going to be mucho dinero.


Has to? If you can't slip the caliper over the rotor ridge, just grind the ridge down on the rotor. If it just needs the caliper piston be rotated, just get this for $38: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RDGMNM/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8

I couldn't get my Dakota front caliper off last week because one of the caliper pins stripped out the hex key socket. I removed the other pin, ground a pad ear off with an angle grinder, rotated around the stuck pin, removed the pads and removed the caliper.

There's always a way. If you're replacing rotors or calipers anyway, you don't even need to be careful.

Since we're talking about Accords, Million Mile Joe religiously replaced his rears every 300,000 miles. I've always thought mine should last that long, but usually something intervenes to junk them early, like the shoe friction material cracking or a wheel cylinder leaking. By "early" I mean 15 years/150K miles or so.

Originally Posted By: supton
I think you generalize too much. My vintage Jetta is well known for wearing rear brake pads at a rate of 2x the front pads. They are also known for needing new calipers at brake time (something about the rear calipers, they just plain get sticky).


You're right. While most vehicles are gentle on rear shoes/pads, Honda Pilots wear them out at 80-90K miles, while the fronts last 90K-100K miles. Terrible engineering, huh?

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
You mean a friendly neighborhood Toyota dealer might be trying to screw a customer who has their vehicle in for service? No way!!!! That doesn't happen. LOL I'm just having some fun that's all.
Never happens at GM, I'll bet.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
You mean a friendly neighborhood Toyota dealer might be trying to screw a customer who has their vehicle in for service? No way!!!! That doesn't happen. LOL I'm just having some fun that's all.


Would you bring an empty jug and honestly expect TGMO for cheap from these people?

There is a huge difference between those of us who know exactly how these bastar.. operate and those that think or hope they do.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: eljefino
To be fair, this is a franchised dealer owned by someone other than Toyota or Toyota of North America.



This is true. Sadly it's true for so many franchised dealerships across the USA.
Where CAN you buy a car factory direct? Tesla has the only legal challenge going to the "franchise laws" that I know of.

 

[HerrStig]

Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: Falken
Sad.

I only advocate an early rear brake job if you are 1 year past the lifetime that you plan to keep the car.

This is only to lessen the chance of a wheel cylinder leaking while you are doing the brake job, and the rear brakes should then last the rest of the life of the car.

If you milk the rear brakes, you might be stuck with a higher repair bill to only then need a rear set of brakes on an 8 or 9 year old car only to scrap it a year or two later. Rear engine cars are hard on rear brakes as well.

So a bit early is ok, like a year or two.


I think you generalize too much. My vintage Jetta is well known for wearing rear brake pads at a rate of 2x the front pads. They are also known for needing new calipers at brake time (something about the rear calipers, they just plain get sticky).

Brake jobs are cheap. Doing brakes one year and scrapping the next is vastly better than not and having a collision one year prior to (planned) scrappage. Milk as many years/miles out of it for lowest running costs.

Although why would an 8/9 year old car be ready for the scrap heap?

 

[javacontour]

Yes, a more accurate description would be, "Overheard at Ed Schmedlapts Toyota dealership...."

Originally Posted By: eljefino
To be fair, this is a franchised dealer owned by someone other than Toyota or Toyota of North America.

 

[hypervish]

Not standing up for the dealer or anything here, but it's cute how some of you think that only stealerships upsell customers and independent shops are more trustworthy.