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Hi. I have a July 2008 Rav 4 2.2 Diesel which I have owned since new. I have just had the car serviced at an independant garage 20000 miles. At this service I was told that I had warped front discs and a brake judder. I was advised to go back to the main dealer and get it checked out and a warranty claim submitted. My main dealer has told me that Toyota will not entertain a warranty claim as the criteria is 20,000 miles or 18 months old for brakes. I rung Toyota customer services and they did not want to know. The car is 20 months old and has now done 21000 miles but only 20000 when the problem identified. I have never in 40 years of driving had disc problems and cannot ever remember having new pads. Do you think Toyota are being reasonable and if not what suggestiond do you have please.

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There have been other cases of this problem so you are not alone. Apparently discs were replaced initially but, as you have discovered, Toyota have moved the goal posts somewhat. I would consider that these discs and/or pads, or the combination of the two are not 'fit for purpose' if they have warped so early. Like you, I am into my fourth decade of driving and have taken a lot of cars with disc brakes well over 100k miles with no disc problems whatsoever.

Maybe a bit of publicity might get Toyota to change their policy but I doubt it as both discs and pads are considered a 'wear part'.

Maybe Anchorman, with his specialist experience, could shed some light on what mileage could reasonably be expected from a set of discs under 'normal' [whatever that is] use/conditions?

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Welcome to the club.

I'm afraid that you can't really predict the life of the pads or discs, there are far too many variables involved but it seems that the pad material has now been changed to address this issue. If you look at the front discs, instead of being bright and shiny like they should be, they are all pitted and stained. This is actually a result of low usage and wouldn't tend to occur if the duty was up and there was enough temperature to burn off the deposits. Eventually the combination of deposits and cleaner areas results in a condition called DTV (disc thickness variation). It is not actually warped discs as such but discs with thick and thin areas.

If I were you I would just phone around some dealers as some seem to be more receptive than others. Failing that, you could go to a good independant or better still if you get the discs and pads from a good motor factor you could do it yourself for about £100.

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Welcome to the club.

I'm afraid that you can't really predict the life of the pads or discs, there are far too many variables involved but it seems that the pad material has now been changed to address this issue. If you look at the front discs, instead of being bright and shiny like they should be, they are all pitted and stained. This is actually a result of low usage and wouldn't tend to occur if the duty was up and there was enough temperature to burn off the deposits. Eventually the combination of deposits and cleaner areas results in a condition called DTV (disc thickness variation). It is not actually warped discs as such but discs with thick and thin areas.

If I were you I would just phone around some dealers as some seem to be more receptive than others. Failing that, you could go to a good independant or better still if you get the discs and pads from a good motor factor you could do it yourself for about £100.

Thanks for the responses, I have a quote from an independant garage of £172 supplied and fitted and am going with that. Just very disapointed that with the car only two months over the 18 month period and the mileage only 20,000 that they could not have at least made a gesture of some sort.

Thanks

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The car has a warranty for 3 years or 60k.

Tell them it is not fit for purpose and you want it fixing. You have to dig in.

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The car has a warranty for 3 years or 60k.

Tell them it is not fit for purpose and you want it fixing. You have to dig in.

Having read the topic under discussion, I went out and had a look at my front discs.

They are both showing about 60% staining. I have not been aware of any judder, but will this follow ?.

The Rav is two years old and has done 12500(faultless) miles. Going in for its two year service shortly, is it worth asking about this ?,

or should I just wait and see what happens.

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The car has a warranty for 3 years or 60k.

Tell them it is not fit for purpose and you want it fixing. You have to dig in.

Having read the topic under discussion, I went out and had a look at my front discs.

They are both showing about 60% staining. I have not been aware of any judder, but will this follow ?.

The Rav is two years old and has done 12500(faultless) miles. Going in for its two year service shortly, is it worth asking about this ?,

or should I just wait and see what happens.

They won't do it unless it judders but it is worth registering your concern with them. It doesn't necessarily follow that it will judder as it depends on duty etc. The harder you work them the less chance there is of it doing it. It could be that it does it now and you haven't noticed. The best way to test is on a dual carriageway and brake a bit later for an island (safely of course!) but you will feel it very distinctly through the steering wheel.

By the way, the staining is a feature of DTV but you can have the staining on its own without DTV. I hope that makes sense!

The bottom line is, if it doesn't judder, don't worry.

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The car has a warranty for 3 years or 60k.

Tell them it is not fit for purpose and you want it fixing. You have to dig in.

Having read the topic under discussion, I went out and had a look at my front discs.

They are both showing about 60% staining. I have not been aware of any judder, but will this follow ?.

The Rav is two years old and has done 12500(faultless) miles. Going in for its two year service shortly, is it worth asking about this ?,

or should I just wait and see what happens.

They won't do it unless it judders but it is worth registering your concern with them. It doesn't necessarily follow that it will judder as it depends on duty etc. The harder you work them the less chance there is of it doing it. It could be that it does it now and you haven't noticed. The best way to test is on a dual carriageway and brake a bit later for an island (safely of course!) but you will feel it very distinctly through the steering wheel.

By the way, the staining is a feature of DTV but you can have the staining on its own without DTV. I hope that makes sense!

The bottom line is, if it doesn't judder, don't worry.

Hi Anchorman,

AT LAST! I've found an advantage to living in a hilly area - the brakes warm up very quickly and don't suffer DTV! Don't feel so bad about the extra fuel now :thumbsup:

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There's a downside to everything though Chris! Brake wear increases exponentially with temperature. It's cheaper to fit pads than it is to fit discs and pads though!

Changing a timing belt on a 4.2 this week so the hard discs will be pressed into service. They have seen quite a lot of action already. :thumbsup:

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There's a downside to everything though Chris! Brake wear increases exponentially with temperature. It's cheaper to fit pads than it is to fit discs and pads though!

Changing a timing belt on a 4.2 this week so the hard discs will be pressed into service. They have seen quite a lot of action already. :thumbsup:

Hi Anchorman,

just looking an an idea for fitting an LED that shines through the hole in the middle of the Hard Disc, the idea being that it would avoid needing a third hand to hold a light when using mirror - keep you posted :thumbsup:

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My sister has an '08 Yaris and with 16000mls on the clock she is having problems with the brakes. I did have a look at them and the discs were excessively pitted, as if the car had been standing for long lengths of time between usage, but it is actually used every day. The only prognosis I can make is that the discs are of an inferior material,and I think Toyota may have been outsourcing components that have ended up being low quality than their usual specifications. a sticky caliper can cause problems with warped discs but my sisters calipers were moving freely

I would also expect way more mileage than 16000 out of a set of discs, I would say 60,000mls+ at least. My father in law's Honda civic has done 100,000mls on the same discs and they are still within the tolerance thickness and functioning perfectly, and they could possibly have been on the car since new (150k mls on clock) .

My advice would be to buy aftermarket discs and pads ( and I hate to admit that as I tend to favour OE parts as long as cost isn't too big an issue),Mintex make good quality parts and Blue Print do Japanese parts at OE standards. Seems pointless to buy Toyota parts if they are failing in relatively short periods

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For sure Toyota will buy the discs in but nearly all discs are just plain old grey cast iron with a specified titanium content. The Toyota dimensions will be spot on and the surface finish ground instead of turned. Other than that, they are much of a muchness. The pads have more of an influence because of depositing and the lack of abrasion.

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For sure Toyota will buy the discs in but nearly all discs are just plain old grey cast iron with a specified titanium content. The Toyota dimensions will be spot on and the surface finish ground instead of turned. Other than that, they are much of a muchness. The pads have more of an influence because of depositing and the lack of abrasion.

I suppose it could be a mismatch of pad/discs Anchorman, but I've never seen discs so badly pitted on a car that is used daily.

I am not up on casting procedures, but is it possible to have a inferior casting process and therefore alter the discs characteristics ?

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No. If you change the pads (before they warp) the discs will become bright and shiny as they should. I use Apec because my supplier stocks them but I guess Mintex and Ferodo ought to be similar.

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Hi. I have a July 2008 Rav 4 2.2 Diesel which I have owned since new. I have just had the car serviced at an independant garage 20000 miles. At this service I was told that I had warped front discs and a brake judder. I was advised to go back to the main dealer and get it checked out and a warranty claim submitted. My main dealer has told me that Toyota will not entertain a warranty claim as the criteria is 20,000 miles or 18 months old for brakes. I rung Toyota customer services and they did not want to know. The car is 20 months old and has now done 21000 miles but only 20000 when the problem identified. I have never in 40 years of driving had disc problems and cannot ever remember having new pads. Do you think Toyota are being reasonable and if not what suggestiond do you have please.

Hi

I have just had to have the front discs and pads replaced as they told me the inside disc was only working at 60%. I am not sure what causes that, never had it before and had many cars; Rav is 4 years old with 49k on the clock, but I am advanced driver, so not heavy on the brakes.

Is this possibly a design problem??

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No. Sometimes the inside of the disc gets corroded and leaves only a norrow band which is still bright. Most cars do that and if anything working the brakes harder will lessen the effect.

What is often misunderstood is that friction materials need to see work (temperature) to work properly and maintain their output. The pads are made up from approximately 60% fibre (mainly steel for shear strength and provide a framework to hold the fillers uniformly), inert fillers for wear resistance and then friction modifiers which can be abrasives like silica or lubricants like graphite. The whole thing is bound together with resin and it is this resin that needs to be burned away to expose fresh friction particles. Careful driving might see 100 deg C but really more "spirited" driving which cycles the temperature to at least 250-400 deg C is much better to burn away the resin and prevent the build up of wear debris and corrosion. It wears them out quicker but keeps them healthy. An occasional whisp of smoke or horrible smell of burning resin actually does more good than harm.

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Hi All. Thanks for your views. I have had the front discs and pads replaced by an independant garage and all is well again, I have written a letter of complaint to Toyota and await a response.

Andrew

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No. Sometimes the inside of the disc gets corroded and leaves only a norrow band which is still bright. Most cars do that and if anything working the brakes harder will lessen the effect.

What is often misunderstood is that friction materials need to see work (temperature) to work properly and maintain their output. The pads are made up from approximately 60% fibre (mainly steel for shear strength and provide a framework to hold the fillers uniformly), inert fillers for wear resistance and then friction modifiers which can be abrasives like silica or lubricants like graphite. The whole thing is bound together with resin and it is this resin that needs to be burned away to expose fresh friction particles. Careful driving might see 100 deg C but really more "spirited" driving which cycles the temperature to at least 250-400 deg C is much better to burn away the resin and prevent the build up of wear debris and corrosion. It wears them out quicker but keeps them healthy. An occasional whisp of smoke or horrible smell of burning resin actually does more good than harm.

That is a good explanation of the composition of brake pads anchorman :thumbsup:

the only thing I would say though, is that generally discs and pads, of road orientated vehicle, are designed to work between a range of temperatures. A lot of vehicles can spend a majority of time at low speeds and low brake levels and I would argue that they should be designed to handle that type of driving.

Having done a bit of rallying I know that repeated heavy braking can result in temperatures of the disc being over 1000 degrees centigrade but of course i wouldn't expect a road pad to cope with that abuse, a different pad compound or disc design will probably be needed.

Conversely I still think that a standard car at average braking levels shouldn't neccessitate early renewal of braking components unless there is a problem, so I would still say there is some mismatch/design problem with the discs in question.

FWIW I am not a heavy braker, far from it tbh. I prefer to read the road ahead and try not to brake unless I have to, and I haven't had any problems with my vehicles brakes.

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No. Sometimes the inside of the disc gets corroded and leaves only a narrow band which is still bright. Most cars do that and if anything working the brakes harder will lessen the effect.

What is often misunderstood is that friction materials need to see work (temperature) to work properly and maintain their output. The pads are made up from approximately 60% fibre (mainly steel for shear strength and provide a framework to hold the fillers uniformly), inert fillers for wear resistance and then friction modifiers which can be abrasives like silica or lubricants like graphite. The whole thing is bound together with resin and it is this resin that needs to be burned away to expose fresh friction particles. Careful driving might see 100 deg C but really more "spirited" driving which cycles the temperature to at least 250-400 deg C is much better to burn away the resin and prevent the build up of wear debris and corrosion. It wears them out quicker but keeps them healthy. An occasional wisp of smoke or horrible smell of burning resin actually does more good than harm.

That is a good explanation of the composition of brake pads anchorman :thumbsup:

the only thing I would say though, is that generally discs and pads, of road orientated vehicle, are designed to work between a range of temperatures. A lot of vehicles can spend a majority of time at low speeds and low brake levels and I would argue that they should be designed to handle that type of driving.

Having done a bit of rallying I know that repeated heavy braking can result in temperatures of the disc being over 1000 degrees centigrade but of course i wouldn't expect a road pad to cope with that abuse, a different pad compound or disc design will probably be needed.

Conversely I still think that a standard car at average braking levels shouldn't necessitate early renewal of braking components unless there is a problem, so I would still say there is some mismatch/design problem with the discs in question.

FWIW I am not a heavy braker, far from it tbh. I prefer to read the road ahead and try not to brake unless I have to, and I haven't had any problems with my vehicles brakes.

Yes I agree there is potentially something wrong but not with the discs, with the pads. It is fairly well documented that I sang the praises of Japanese friction material but there have been too many reports of this problem for it to be the odd "extreme of low duty". We believe the pad material has now changed as the seem more aggressive and generate more dust. Getting a pad material that would remain consistent throughout a temperature range was something the !Removed! were particularly good at but the cost of the pad was typically higher than a European pad by a factor of about 8 which was lucky for us as they could have walked away with all our business. Maybe the is an early foray into low cost materials. I have lost touch a bit because it is 6 years since I was in the friction industry. One thing that does irritate me is this new Toyota policy of not honoring warranty claims when vehicles are still within the 3 year 60k period. An owner is entitled to have a car fit for purpose under warranty and that means the entire period.

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Yes I agree there is potentially something wrong but not with the discs, with the pads. It is fairly well documented that I sang the praises of Japanese friction material but there have been too many reports of this problem for it to be the odd "extreme of low duty". We believe the pad material has now changed as the seem more aggressive and generate more dust. Getting a pad material that would remain consistent throughout a temperature range was something the !Removed! were particularly good at but the cost of the pad was typically higher than a European pad by a factor of about 8 which was lucky for us as they could have walked away with all our business. Maybe the is an early foray into low cost materials. I have lost touch a bit because it is 6 years since I was in the friction industry. One thing that does irritate me is this new Toyota policy of not honoring warranty claims when vehicles are still within the 3 year 60k period. An owner is entitled to have a car fit for purpose under warranty and that means the entire period.

Tbh Anchorman , i wasn't sure wether the disc or the pad was the problem, but you've obviously explained above which one is in fact the culprit.

It is odd though why Toyota , with their reputation of second to none reliability, are having problems that you would expect from less reliable manufacturers.

Are they not buying in parts from other countries?

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They do use a number of global suppliers but most parts are sourced locally - i.e. Japan. The pads on the 4.3s were definitely Japanese (I don't know about the post 2009 vehicles but if I ever have the need to take a wheel off I will have one out to look). I couldn't be sure about the discs but that would probably be academic because a grey cast iron disc from any location would behave in a similar way.

We used to have a similar problem with European pads in that we could do all the dyno and in-house testing in the world but we never really knew until we got some volume into the field whether or not they were going to behave themselves. Unfortunately there are some aspects of the car like this and EGRs and oil leaks etc where we continue to do the development for them (its known as an extended field trial) but this is where TGB have introduced an anomaly I can't reconcile; If they find an oil leak on the last day of a 3 year warranty they will fix it but if they find brake judder at one day over a year and I am to believe what other members are saying, they will reject it. It makes no sense as far as I can see.

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Hi. I have a July 2008 Rav 4 2.2 Diesel which I have owned since new. I have just had the car serviced at an independant garage 20000 miles. At this service I was told that I had warped front discs and a brake judder. I was advised to go back to the main dealer and get it checked out and a warranty claim submitted. My main dealer has told me that Toyota will not entertain a warranty claim as the criteria is 20,000 miles or 18 months old for brakes. I rung Toyota customer services and they did not want to know. The car is 20 months old and has now done 21000 miles but only 20000 when the problem identified. I have never in 40 years of driving had disc problems and cannot ever remember having new pads. Do you think Toyota are being reasonable and if not what suggestiond do you have please.

Hi

I have just had to have the front discs and pads replaced as they told me the inside disc was only working at 60%. I am not sure what causes that, never had it before and had many cars; Rav is 4 years old with 49k on the clock, but I am advanced driver, so not heavy on the brakes.

Is this possibly a design problem??

duh - I guess the caliper isn't working right - check the pads are ok and that the brakes don't judder. I found the caliper is often the problem...maybe just needs cleaned and to make sure pads can slide properly and pistons are able to operate as they should.

After almost 2 years of trouble with my fast RAV, we traced the problem down to a sticking piston which had not been right since manufacture. The manufacturer stripped both front calipers down and re-built them, and the garage has added some gunge to help prevent dust getting into piston chambers and now the brakes work great (Thanks ancs for the mintex pads....) 100 - 0 in a scaringly short distance!!

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Show Long Headers

From:

stuart #######

Subject:

defective brakes

Date:

May 07, 2010 11:56:31 AM BST

To:

Customer.Relations@TGB.toyota.co.uk

3 Attachments, 5.6MB

Sir

Still awaiting a written answer to my e-mail.

Stuart #######

>From: "stu" <stewyinpagham@mac.com>

>To: <Customer.Relations@TGB.toyota.co.uk>

>Date: May 04, 2010 12:21:21 PM BST

>Subject: defective brakes

>

>

>>Reg. Number HT06### Rav4 T180. Silver.

>>

>>Dear Sir

>>

>>The car above was submitted to my local Toyota center Kings in Hedge-end Southampton Hampshire for investigation of excessive brake noise and judder. I had previously removed the front road wheels and checked the pads and discs and the cause of the noise was a build up friction material in the groove in the pad and the judder was a result in excessive deposits from the pads adhering to the disc.

>>I took some photographs of the discs and pads for my own records.

>>

>>The subsequent report from the 'center' was that the pads were worn and the discs were uneven with visible high points. As this was my conclusion I naturally thought that the discs would be covered under the extended warranty and I would pay only for the pads.

>>This claim has been rejected by yourselves.

>>

>>I find it hard to accept that during the first service a warranty was 'passed' for the discs to be skimmed by WKB Toyota center in Chichester West Sussex. The Service advisor at the time told me that there were a few issues with the RAV4's brakes and it was common to skim at such a low milage.

>>Having had many new cars and company vans from many different manufacturers in the past, and this being my 3rd new Toyota it came as a surprise but being a new model I was not unduly worried. There are always teething issues with new models but that is what warranty is for?

>>

>>Trawling the Toyota forums, it appears that there are inconsistencies with the 'warranty' given on the discs. I imagine due to the number of claims received this is the reason that Toyota have changed its policy on warranty, however my extended warranty states that discs are covered. I understand that the pads are a service item but would not expect to have to change discs and pads at 34000 miles.

>>

>>

>>I await your response,

>>Stuart #######

.........................................................

Having Phoned the help-line and having a conversation with a most unhelpful TGB operative called Paul, I am still awaiting the official answer as to why the claim is rejected. It's not the cost of the disc's, it is now the principle..

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