That's too bad that people have those issues, I was not aware.


I bet it feels and brakes better - better pads go a long way and the system is probably quite firm.

Basically it's unfortunately a poor design of seals. The pistons are susceptible to corrosion. The worse the area is for winter is typically the more these calipers fail.

I only assumed that by your join date and post count that you are new to the 4Runner community. Chances are that your 06 and being in Minnesota that your brakes have been replaced before as well. It'll only be a matter of time before they need to be replaced again.

I live in Maryland with moderate winters by your standards and have replaced mine numerous times, even upgrading to the 5th gens as well. There is no oem permanent solution. This was my out plus the performance gains as well.

Your right that I'm new to the 4runner scene. According to the service records; my brakes have only had the normal pad and rotor service done. I inspected them this week and at 125k they look good still - including pistons and dust boots. Was not always a MN truck though.

It does seem like a whole bunch of people have issues with them, but remember that most of the time people that do not have issues are quiet about it and don't go to forums to express their happiness. There are a lot of high mileage 4runners out there, and people come to forums to complain.

Perhaps stock calipers have a bad dust boot? The calipers being advertised in this thread (and a decent amount of BBK anyway) don't even come with dust boots, because they are racing designed calipers not intended for daily driving on the street for thousands of miles. A re-man NAPA caliper with a lifetime warranty would last longer in those conditions and be a much cheaper alternative.

didnt notice a problem till i had to reset the pistons. i was able to force the pistons back in with a bj press! didnt take long till i had to replace with remans and rotors

I've owned by 2004 Toyota 4runner for about 8 years. I've replaced my calipers 3 times. I've gone OEM, remanned Auto Zone, and OEM 5th gens. I live in a high salt environment, these calipers are trash. I'd pay the difference in a BBK just to stop having to replace my calipers every other year. I've had 4 other friends with 4runners, 2 of them have had to have calipers replaced as well. In fact I helped them with it. I'd say sure, maybe a decent don't have issues, but there are way TOO many that do have this issue.

I had the 6-piston Wilwood calipers on my 99 Miata and after about 70,000 miles it started to make noise and had to be rebuilt. The stocks calipers in my 2003 4Runner are still good after 221,000 miles. So to conclude, the Wilwood is mostly for looks but if you want durability the OEM will last twice as long based on my personal experience.

I say the best bang for your buck brake system would be...

-oem calipers
-cryo treated rotors
-Hawk street brake pads
-Goodrich stainless steel brake lines.

I agree. That's basically what I have.

But for those that drive on salted roads and have had problems with seizing, the aluminum calipers are a pretty tempting option.

Soooooooo hi guys and gals. Literally was looking to find if someone made a front and rear brake setup(I’m anal about matching calipers) and I happen to stumble onto this thread. I just joined for the sole purpose of explaining, in full, how a brake system actually works without throwing around terms or theories I don’t understand. First I want to start buy saying that yes the wilwood caliper setup seems like a dope alternative to out factory brakes but wish they made a rear set too. On another note, a way to significantly prolong our brake caliper life would be as simple as coating the caliper piston in something like titanium nitride or, if you wanna get real fancy, a dlc coating. That should stop corrosion between the caliper body and pistons on top of reducing friction of the piston sliding passed the seals. Now let me define some terms first and I’m not going into the physics definitions but more or less I’m going to try explain in layman's terms.
Friction is the result of 2 surfaces coming in contact with one another under a given force and is related to the coefficient of friction for a given velocity and temperature.
Coefficient of friction is used to describe the friction a given material can produce under its own weight with no additional force added.
So let me explain. If you had a 1in by 1in brake pad or you 4Runner and exerted 1500 psi of pressure, assuming same material as oem pads, it will lock of the brakes. Regardless if you had baby 225’s street tires all around or 315’s slicks all the way around it will lock up the wheels and you’ll go sliding. Now if you had say a 3in x 6in pad and you applied 1500 psi of force then your talking about the same force in a larger area which may not, 1500 is still a lot, lock up the brakes and can now take advantage of the tires. Once traction is broken, temperature sky rockets in the localized area and the coefficient of friction goes out the window. I know someone is gunna bring up people heating up their tires with a burnout and say that proves I’m wrong and let me nip that right now. You have a temperature range that a given material works best. If you exceed it or are below it, ask anyone that drag races, friction goes down so there is a sweet spot that you shoot for. There are a bunch of other things you have to look out for as well, for instance, if you over heat a clutch then you can leave a glaze from molten clutch material that is much harder than the original material but has a low coefficient of friction. Brakes work the same. Now we can then talk about the number of pistons. Same concept. More pistons equals more equal surface area. One pistons in the center will cause the pad to flex under load giving you less effective surface area. Multiple pistons will even out that force. Now I will agree that buying a bbk with crap pads will be less effective than an oe brake set with a good set of pads. But on the other hand that higher coefficient is also going to produce substantially more heat in a given area which will cause those good pads to become useless and x amount of braking. The larger rotors will be able to displace more heat and vent it faster. The other benefit of the larger rotor is, like someone else pointed out, leverage but more specifically it’s time. See an inch on the outter circumference of a 10in dia rotor and 15in dia rotor are quite different when comparing to how many degrees of the 360 or your wheel or rotor. In essence this gives you a longer duration per degree of rotation giving you more time to get the most out of your brake pad material. The pad applies a force for a longer duration giving you more power transmitted to your tires without shocking them and causing a loss of traction. Power is energy per unit time. Now let’s talk about materials of the wilwood kit beings I read that it was stupid to install the wilwood kit because your adding more weight. Now I don’t know about y’all but I’m pretty sure the larger billet aluminum caliper is still going to weight less than the smaller cast iron caliper. Further more not having corrosion issues couple with being lighter, able to spread more force over a great area and having a lot more options for pad material seems legit. Back to the rotor though and you’ll see that there are options. Want a regular rotor than yea the rotor will weigh more. Spend the extra for a 2 piece rotor and it weighs less than the oem and you get to be one of the cool kids with 2 piece rotors. The downside is you can’t go to your local parts store for a replacement. So all in all there is no way anyone, with a straight face, can say the oem brake setup is as good as an upgrade like wilwood. Take the time to look for videos of people testing the before and after and the differences are rather significant. But just like beauty, the usefulness is in the eyes of the beholder. You may thing your factory setup is good enough but there’s someone on here that’s been in a minor accident than will tell you 1ft, 2ft, 3ft, 4ft or 5ft would made all the difference in the world to a sore neck/back/increased insurance rates or a near miss. There will be someone driving their 4Runner down hill loaded with a trailer just to feel the pedal hit the drop it like it’s hot and hit the floor. If your going to put the information out there, please make sure it’s legit bc there’s someone out there trying to find a way to make their 4Runner better and you’re steering the away from a good option, albeit an expensive option. If I missed anything, bc I’m sure I did to make it more simple and was still long winded as hell, please add some more info as a reply so hopefully more people can understand how these systems works.

Btw to someone else’s point about the rear brakes activating for traction control, I absolutely hate that system. They have the tech so why didn’t they just limit torque output through the motor as a form of traction control? O wait. Buy more brake pads from toyoter for your toyoter lol.

Whoa...someone throwing fuel on a fire that was JUST about dead. I agree with a LOT of people and their posts and their "science" behind brakes. We have some engineers here! Woohoo!!! But I can tell you, with how much weight I have on my 4Runner and I remember modulating my brakes coming down Lippincott Pass in Death Valley. That is not a very steep pass. I had MAJOR brake fade due to all my weight. And yes, I had upgraded lines, better fluid, better pads (F and R) and it made NO difference. It was at that point I upgraded to the Stoptechs from SOS Performance (who also make a matching rear) and I have NEVER experienced ANY brake fade since then and I traveled and lived out of my 4Runner for 6 months and I went from CA to CO to MT to the Artic Ocean to AK to WA to AZ to TX to NC to FL and back to CO and the Stoptech brakes performed WAY better than any upgraded stock system would. And now living in CO, NO issues on mountain passes or trails in UT, CO, NM, or AZ. Take allllll the science and engineering you want and argue all day, but I have REAL life experience and it was night and day difference with all the shit I have on my truck to Broverland. And yes, I've tracked cars as well so I know the necessity of good brakes. Hell, even the size Stoptechs I had on my B5S4 with 450hp wasn't even enough to not suffer brake fade. I needed MUCH bigger to keep them fading. Or maybe some Alcons. But in a certain size and weight of a vehicle, a stock size will only get you so far. And let's not mention the stock calipers seizing in areas with crappy climates....like CO, at times. :-) Do what you want with your money. Go 35s and LT so you get more likes on IG, but your money is better spent on brakes especially if you're loaded up. My .02 and now will be logging off as I'm sure some on this thread will want to "discuss". Cheers!

Im going to upgrade brakes because in 3 weeks time I added an easy 1000lbs to the truck and you can feel the brakes arent stopping as well as they did prior to RTT rack fr/rear buumpers etc

When I’m on steep mountain passes, I just down shift. Do you guys not do that?

We found some steep passes near Durango, Silverton, Telluride, and Ouray Colorado. From Pueblo to Durango there were some steep passes as well and we were fully loaded, driving slightly nose high.

I considered upgrading, until I had a deer run out in front of me at 55 mph. I slammed on the brakes and it felt like the car was going to do an endo. This electronic hydraulic system is impressive.