Time for new brakes. Input wanted.

[meltdown]

The OEM pads have been good to me and that’s likely what I’ll use when I change them. The only brake complaint I can think of is the “OMG, we have to stop NOW!” thing that happens when you stab the brake in an emergency. The other vehicles I drive are much heavier so the 4Runner seems like a performance vehicle in comparison.

The rotors look really good. The only vibration I get is the steering wheel shake at around 60 mph sometimes and I know that’s from the tires. Maybe this weekend I can pull the tires off and measure the thickness of the rotors. Anybody know what the minimum should be?

I have honestly never heard of changing brake fluid before. I just looked at mine and it has a bit of a brown tint to it. Looks kinda like watered down iced tea. Guess I’ll start looking for a tutorial on that.

 

[Cheers!]

I was surprised when I changed the brake fluid out I saw bubbles come out of 1 if the rear calipers and 1 out of the front caliper. No one had touched the brakes for any kind of service.

When I went to replace the fluid I turkey baster sucked out the reservoir and filled it up with fresh fluid and started to bleed the brakes. In theory there would be zero chance of introducing air.

My brake pedal firmed up after the brake fluid change I did.

 

[catrains]

you have 93K miles on your OEM brake pads.. you inspected them and the pads are worn too much .. the rotors have no rust blisters and no pad wear damage on the rotors.
many do replace the brake pads around 75K miles but some always drive in traffic congestion they replace the pads 35K miles.
buy the toyota pads use silicone brake grease to lube the pins and coat the caliper weather boots. use a wire brush if there is some corrosion on the caliper / bracket.
put the brake pedal down keep the pedal locked in place . put a clear bottle with some brake fluid in it connect to the caliper bled fitting using a clear hose .. open the bled screw .use a C clamp to push back the caliper to the max ... then lock up the bled screw then clean up the brake area put pads in and then set in place ... then pump the brake pedal then keep the pedal down then open the bled screw and see if the brake fluid has air or dirty fluid .. repeat again then if no air and clear fluid it is good then do the next brake caliper repeat.

 

[Cheers!]

Bleeding brakes is easy. I would budget for 3 bottles of brake fluid (36oz) or 1 litre.

1.) Take a damp rag and clean the brake fluid reservoir cap and the reservoir near the opening so you don't get dust or gunk going in
2.) sipon, suck, syringe, whatever to get all the old brake fluid out of the reservior
3.) open a brand new bottle of brake fluid and fill to max (never use brake fluid that has already been opened)
4.) set car to "on" but engine not turned over. So it goes off -> acc -> ON (but don't turn engine over)
5.) start at back of car, passenger rear. Put clear brake hose on nipple, hose goes to a bottle, open bleed with a flared wrench (if you live in rust belt, this is important else you could be in for a brake caliper replacement as well).
6.) depress the brake pedal with the bleeder open about 25% of travel. The ABS pump will activate and push brake fluid out. Don't hold pedal for longer than 5 seconds at a time until you get a feel for how fast the fluid is coming out. Don't let the reservior go below MIN. The ABS pump moves a lot of fluid out very fast. I would budget about 75% of a bottle for this one side.
7.) Close bleeder, wipe the bleeder with a paper towel.
8.) Move to driver rear, and redo #4 to #7. Always making sure the reservoir is above MIN. I'd budget 60% to 75% of a bottle of brake fluid for the driver's rear
9.) close bleeder, wipe etc etc
10.) Move to passenger front, put hose on, crack bleeder, and let it slowly dribble out. This is the Gravity Bleed method. The SCCA guys swear by this method. I do it this way for 10+ years now. I'm also not being paid or on the clock. Budget 30% to 50% of a bottle for passenger front.
11.) close bleed, etc etc,
12.) Move to Driver front (make sure reservior is full). Crack bleeder, let it dribble out. Spend about 25% to 50% of a bottle here.
13. Close bleeder... done.

The reason why you use less and less as you go around the car as fresh brake fluid has already made it's way around.

You can pump and open bleeder etc if you have 2 person. If you are solo, then it's pretty much gravity bleed, or you find a vacuum bleeder etc. I've always used Gravity, and it helps prevent you from over traveling your master cylinder. The bore of the master cylinder usually wears over time or has build up. As you go max pedal travel the piston seal rides over this ridge and you end up damaging your master cylinder and have an internal bypass leak. With Gravity bleed you never encounter that.

Also don't ever let your master cylinder go empty. To bleed a master cylinder is not so trivial on modern cars.

Good luck.

 

[1000MPH]

I do a similar process as above using the gravity bleed method but use tubing and a bottle on the fronts. Just make sure the bottle is above the bleeder and air will not get into the system. You can do a one person pump this way as well.
https://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-...s-80-000-miles-101-000-miles.html#post3526588

 

[meltdown]

I do a similar process as above using the gravity bleed method but use tubing and a bottle on the fronts. Just make sure the bottle is above the bleeder and air will not get into the system. You can do a one person pump this way as well.
https://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-...s-80-000-miles-101-000-miles.html#post3526588

That’s one of the threads I searched for before starting this one. Thanks for the link.

 

[Jivewalker]

I'm at 220,000 miles and on my 3rd set of OEM pads all kinds of driving. Averaging 100k per set.

0446560320 fronts
0446660140 rears

Have to make sure you get the above and not the pads the dealer uses for their changes, they aren't worth a crap.

 

[schwein]

I have 80k miles and am on our second set of Pad's and Rotors for the front and back. I aquate this to living in a city and having LOTS of stop and go traffic. this being said we always just replace with factory stuff seems to work great for stopping the vehicle. when I was younger i used to get aftermarket stuff but unless you're buying oversized rotors or are trying to get drilled / slotted rotors I would be willing to bet you'll see negligible differences in day to day driving.

 

[dezertbomber]

To your original question, you can reuse the pins and clips.

I just did all new rotors and pads (Duralast Gold, never have to buy pads again with the lifetime warranty) and the rear pads came with new clips, but the fronts did not. I bought a hardware kit from Oreilly and lower clip was a different design, so couldn't use it, but did use the pins and inner clip.

I'm experimenting with the hardware, driver side was all old hardware and pass side has all new except the lower clip. Doubt it matters since I cleaned up and greased the old stuff.

 

[Cheers!]

OEM pads and rotors: 22k miles (they were 25% remaining). I also imprinted the ceramic pad onto each rotor face badly.
EBC Yellow Stuff and OEM rotors: changed at around 40,000 miles. Rears were paper thin. All 4 rotors were heavily dished and not worth surfacing
Hawk HPS and OEM rotors: on going... now at 60,000 miles, I think I'm about 30% wear on the pads, rotors actually look decent with no lip yet.

95% stop and go driving. 5% driving up and down the mountains.

Also I like to trail brake to take the late apex around all turns (left and right).

 

[joshoowa]

Helped a friend replace all 4 brakes and rotors, he bought oem off eBay from some Toyota dealership in FL if I recall. I think it was around mid 400s for it. The brakes came with new shims and springs, the only thing you’ll reuse is the pins that hold the pads in place.

 

[1000MPH]

If your Toyota brakes came with shims and springs they are the lower tier TCMC brake kits. Not recommend by many pro techs.

https://www.rav4world.com/d1/attachments/pdf/T-TT-0132-11.pdf
https://www.toyota.com/toyota-owners-theme/pdf/04_BrakePads2015_final[1].pdf
Toyota Factory Replacement Brakes vs. TCMC Brakes

Conicelli Toyota used to have some of the best prices for brake pad and rotor bundles. I’m not sure if they are still competitive with the www.parts.Toyota.com free shipping offers that are common these days. You still need to buy the hardware and shims separately.
Genuine OEM Toyota Brake Bundle Kits | Conicelli Toyota of Conshohock

https://parts.toyota.com/

 

[zcruiser]

If you wash your 4runner once per month, you never notice. If you never wash your 4runner (like me), then you will see brown dust build up on your rims.

I use Hawk HPS on my 300ZX with stock chrome wheels... it shows!

 

[meltdown]

For those that are interested, Lifestyle Overland and Wanderlost Overland have some good diy videos on 5th gen brakes.

Lifestyle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmWKFaKSdJk&feature=youtu.be

Wanderlost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNEJ0Efvv3M&feature=youtu.be

 

[AggieOE]

Resurrecting this old thread because it's time for new brakes for us.

This will be the third set at now 130k miles.
The last set was EBC Green Stuff pads, 6000 front and 4000s on the rear with OEM rotors. They worked night and day better than the OEM pads but the fronts dusted a LOT. After a week of driving, I would clean the wheels because the fronts were noticeably darker than the rear.

As such, I'm really debating on going back with all Toyota parts or trying Hawks.
Nose dive is minimized now with Bilsteins so I'm not worried about that anymore but I don't want to lose the great bite this set has.

Any additional thoughts on OEM vs aftermarket pads?

 

[hoppyjr]

When my time comes, I plan to use this kit by Power Stop. It includes calipers, pads, and rotors - but is available without calipers. They have other kits configured to the 4Runner, just use the finder tool on the Power Stop website.

Power Stop Front and Rear KC5874A-36 Z36 Truck and Tow Brake Pad and Rotor Kit with Red Powder Coated Calipers https://a.co/d/8B9WJAe

 

[RAVL 2016]

I had the brakes done on my '16 in August. I used Toyota pads because the original lasted a long time and wore very evenly - no shudder, vibration, etc.

On the subject of rotors, you know to check them for minimum thickness to be sure and even if they are of appropriate thickness and are in good shape, they should be machined, even if very lightly. You want to make sure that the new pads have a good friction surface to grip, and so you needn't take off a lot (in relative terms) but they should be done. I know a lot of people say it's fine and what-not, and it is not the end of the world if you don't do it, but the proper way to do the job is to machine the rotors (again even if only taking off a very small amount). This is why, btw, I deliberated and did not do the brakes myself. By the time I buy new Toyota rotors (because I don't have access to an on-the-car lathe or a good machine shop that I trust) to replace perfectly good rotors on the truck, it is a wash cost-wise and probably cheaper to pay a shop to do the job.

Final note is to make sure you do a brake flush as part of the job.

HTH, good luck.

 

[Centrifugal]

I do a lot of highway driving. Six years and 105,000 miles on the OEM brakes. Fronts are at 40%, rears at 20%.
In a month or so I’ll have them all replaced with Toyota parts. They work for me.

 

[mrblah]

plan on using power stop z36 rotors and pads when i replace my OEM rotors and pad in the next year or so. I have the kit sitting in my office for months.

OEM rotors and pad performance were good enough until i had to do an emergency panic stop and i blew through the brakes. That was a wake up call for me.

A buddy of mine runs centric rotors and he swears by them also.

 

[GNB]

I stick with the OEM Toyota pads and hardware.