Are these repair costs reasonable? (1 Viewer)

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Aug 25, 2003
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'94 FJ80 is at the dealer shop as we speak. Can anyone quickly shed some light on these recommended repairs/costs?

- rear brakes $239.95
- front brakes $410 - my front rotors are supposedly warped also and just had them replaced in april 2002? any insight on this? is there any warranty on these things?

- axle seals $420 (axle is leaking)

Thanks for any quick help you can give.

kent allen
'94 fj80
99k miles
 
Kent,

What parts are included in those prices? That will help out in determining the answer to your question.
 
front brakes:
new pads, new rotors, grease seals
$359 parts + $360 labor

axle seals because of leaking:
"gear and fluid mixed together"
new seals
$410

rear brakes:
$239.95
 
Well, front pads are about $40, OEM rotors are like $120 each, and hub seals are ~$10 (I forget), so you're looking at ~$300 plus tax in parts if you pay dealer prices. Add in 2 axle seals plus a little bit of extra labor to reach the front axle seals.

What is being done on the rear? Rotors and pads and hub seals or just pads or ? If just doing pads, that's very easy.

As a data point, for that work, I pay $35 each for rotors, get OEM axle and hub seals (w/discount), and do the labor myself.
 
Ok, got busy....

OEM front pads, rotors(2) and wheel bearing seals(2) list $278.68

front axle kit(the more expensive way to do it) and inner axle seals list $209.80

rear brake pads list $55.44

The combined figures of 359+360+410= $1,129.00 sounds aboud right for a full axle service and front brakes. (provided they in fact do a "full" service including pulling the knuckles).

The rear brake job seems a bit high to me.
 
These prices seem to be ballpark compared to my local Toyota House and an independent outfit that works on Toyotas.

One thing you need to watch out for is getting your lug nuts torqued to tightly. Look in your owner's manual to double check, but your lug nuts (on factory aluminium rims) should be torqued to 76 foot pounds. This does not seem very tight, but if they are tightened much more youur rotors can warp. One of my local Toyota shops inspected my brakes for free when they performed an LOF. By the time I drove from Texas to Colorado on vacation, all four rotors were severely warped. My longtime mechanic in Colorado Springs broke out the torques wrench and concluded that my lugnuts varied between 80 foot pounds and 180 foot pounds. Obviousely, some idiot had tightened my lugs with an impact wrench and never properly torquesd them. Now I carry a torque wrench with me and check the lugs evertime I pick the truck up from a shop.

-Garth
 
Garth,

A hair to split, if I may.

your torque figure is correct for 95 up alloy wheels. Steel wheels and the earlier alloys with steel conical inserts require 109 lbft of torque.

D-
 
>> I pay $35 each for rotors...

Please do tell, rotors made by whom?

R -
 
Sorry for changing the topic...but how do you check if the lugs nuts are over torqued ? Provided all torque wrenches may vary a bit, if I set my wrench to 80ft/lbs & can NOT open (turning CCW) the nut(s), then it's safe to assume that they are overtorqued ?

Frank.
 
Garth,

I started to not reply because my comments are another hair splitting post.

Overtorquing a little (e.g. up to 110 ft/lbs) is not good for the alloys but it will NOT warp the rotors. The rotors, hub, lug nuts, etc. for your truck are identical to the rotors & lug nuts on those that are running the OEM steel wheels and other steel wheels. Those are being torqued over 100 ft/lbs per the factory specs.

Granted, a big difference between lug nuts, some torqued to 180 and others to 40, probably would warp a rotor.

-B-
 
[quote author=ParadiseCruiser link=board=2;threadid=4955;start=msg37978#msg37978 date=1062714776]

>> I pay $35 each for rotors...

Please do tell, rotors made by whom?

R -
[/quote]Probably made by some skinny guy in Taiwan. Sold by Henderson Wheel.
 
ok -- so it sounds like maybe my lug nuts were torqued too much -- these rotors were just replaced in 2/02 -- brake pads too.

so 1.5 years and 15,000 miles later i have warped rotors and need new pads?

how could i independently verify if the lugs were too tight?
 
I personally can't see how you can warp the front rotors no matter how much you overtighten them. The rotor bolts to the back side of the hub. The rears are sandwiched in between the rim and hub but it looked like plenty of contact area there as well. These aren't Honda Accords!
 
Have you had the wheels off since your service? (rotation, etc)

If you get it serviced at that same shop (Toyota) and they did all the work...would it make sense to ask them why they over torqued your lugs and caused this expensive repair? :D

stick it to em!!!
 
I don't see how improperly torquing the lug nuts is going to warp the rotors, either, as it bolts to a heavy, cast hub. Improper torquing will overstretch the lug bolts, so they might near their breaking point.

I had a Toyota dealer install 3rd party (napa?) rotors back in Nov 2000, they were warped by summer of 2001 (had 23K mi on them, almost all highway miles). I installed slotted brembo's in March 2002 and they've been perfectly true, and I lived on a big hill. I'd guess it were the quality of the steel that mostly determines if the rotors are going to warp (comparing two rotors of equal thickness but different brands [eg, napa vs brembo]).
 
As far as replacing the brake pads/rotors, you can save yourself a ton of money by doing it yourself. Before I bought my LC, I had NEVER changed out a set of brake pads. But with the encouragement of the guys on this forum, I dove in and it turned out to be very easy.

So before you pay the dealer to do it, give it a try yourself!
 
I guess I should have prefaced my comments by saying that this is my mechanic's best guess. The Cruiser had been thoroughly inspected by this same mechanic before I bought it (54k miles). The rotors were fine and the pads were at 80%. When I returned to Colorado (after having the Cruiser into Toyota for an LOF) the odometer showed 62K miles and ALL FOUR rotors were severely warped. We took the torque wrench out and kept adjusting the foot pounds until the lugs would loosen. A couple of lugs on each wheel did not budge until the torque wrench was set to 180 foot pounds.

Back to the LOF at Toyota. They threw in their free brake check and reported that the rotors were fine and the pads were at 65-70% IIRC. Really weird and over-torque doesn’t make sense...maybe a bad batch of rotors.
 
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