So I went to the Stealership to have my 60k service done. I still have my original brake pads all the way around the car, but on my second set of tires.

Well, they called me to tell me I have 60% of the front pads left and 20% of the rear pads left. Again, the car just turned 61,237 miles. When I asked the service writer about it, he said they see it all the time. I talked with Toyota and this is the first they have heard of it (yeah, right!) I tried talking to the tech about it and the Toyota police (AKA, Management) were all over me like white on rice.

Anyone else have this problem? Heard of this problem? What this problem?

 

Having the rear brakes replaced first is not unheard of in hybrid cars.That is the reverse of a normal car and may have something to do with the balance the system sets with the braking percentages front/rear on this car. Having checked mine a few weeks back however at the 65,000 mile mark, there was VERY little wear on the pads.

Did you get a look at them yourself? If not, have your local tech take a look and see what they think. If they agree, get a price from them to replace the pads and turn the rotors (unless they need to be replaced).

 

Well, Toyota does not seem to think a 40% difference in wear, bias to the back, is normal....neither do I. Neither does just about every person I have appraoched this with who knows anything about brakes. If it was a bias to the front, I could understand as normally, most of your breaking is done up front where most of the weight transfer goes. With 80% wear in the rear and only 40% in the front, there is clearly a problem with the breaking distribution.

I always ask for my old parts and kept these. However, I saw these on the car before they took them off. The wear is as I stated. I am trying to find out if this type of wear is common or not to owners. I could care less what the MFG says unless they have a logical explaination.

I turned the rotors and replaced the pads on this one so I have a solid ground 0 to work from. If it does the same thing, we'll go from there.

 

Well, what I am about to say is all heresay...I have a couple of friends that are loyal Honda buyers, and they both have told me, independently, that their rear brakes disc pads always wear out before their fronts...take it for what it's worth.

 

All of the regen braking on the TCH is done with the front wheels. All rear braking is done with the disks (except for the parking brake which uses the rear drums). The front disks are only used at very low speeds (when it's too slow for useful regen) and under very hard braking, and otherwise regen is used. Unless there is a lot of hard/panic braking, I would expect the rear pads to wear out first on the TCH.

-- Alan

 

It's probably more important to point out that when the frictional braking system is in use the rear brakes must carry the appropreate FULL braking load. Whereas the front frictional brakes are often accompanied by the use of regen.

The TCH most likely has, otherwise, a standard Camry braking setup with the expectation that that front frictional brakes will do 80% of the braking.

So on a FWD hybrid it should not be considered unusual for the rear brake pads to wear out first.