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When doing front brakes, is it worth it to pay to clean and adjust rear brakes?

3K views 18 replies 9 participants last post by  c627627 
#1 ·
Also, if you did your brakes elsewhere before, then this time if you're doing it at the dealership, the dealership may charge you for a SHIM KIT, because the other place removed it when doing the brakes previously, for whatever reason.


Is that pretty common, for non-dealer shops to remove the SHIM KIT?
 
#3 · (Edited)
$45 to clean and remove all brake residue from brake components and adjust pads/shoes and emergency brake which helps distribute even brake application which will help increase the life of brakes.

That is how.

Yay or nay?


As for shim kit, are you saying there's an option to refuse that at the dealership?
 
#5 ·
$45 to clean and remove all brake residue from brake components and adjust pads/shoes and emergency brake which helps distribute even brake application which will help increase the life of brakes.

That is how.

Yay or nay?


As for shim kit, are you saying there's an option to refuse that at the dealership?
There is no way to adjust the pads, and there are no shoes on a Camry.

As far as the shims, I don't know if you can refuse it at the dealership. I always do my own brakes. Very easy job if you are mechanically inclined at all. Also one the most overpriced jobs at any dealer or service center. Replacing discs and pads takes about 20 minutes a side for me. If new calipers are needed, maybe another 1/2 hour to put them on and bleed the brake lines.
 
#6 ·
It's not worth to pay anything for a brake job. DIY! Its not hard. Requires very few tools. You learn something and save something. Take your time the first time and sure it'll take you a little longer but you will have the satisfaction you did it yourself while saving much much more. Regardless I would mos def pass on whatever they are trying to upsell you with that rear brake job. Its bogus.
 
#11 ·
Original poster here. Would sure appreciate more info. We have one poster saying that quality front pads always come with the necessary shims. This implies that the official Toyota dealership did not use "quality pads". Please clarify with more info, or else this can make a "civilian" walk in accusing a Toyota Dealership of using sub par material, right?


Then I had a couple of posters saying Toyota Camry 4 cyl brakes are an easy DIY job, followed by somebody saying it's more complicated than that. I went from zero to all by myslef figuring out how to replace speakers and stereo in my Toyota, posted it here and now from anywhere in the world, it's #1 hit on Google when you search for
replace toyota speakers

I do not have experience, is this a DIY job for me or no?


So need more info if I should feel bad for blowing $45 on that clean up rear brake job and paying, I think it was $20 for a SHIM KIT. When the dealership told me they were gonna charge me, they said it was because 'whoever did the brakes before", forgot to, or chose not to, put the shim kit back on, implying maybe I should go back to that place and have them reimburse me? But I'm thinking there's more to it than that. Either way, appreciate your opinion on clarifying all of this.
 
#12 · (Edited)
never used shims before. they suppose to prevent noise, but they just dont work in many cases.
I always used Wagner brake pads-more expansive than most of the pads on the market and they don't come with shims.
 
#13 ·
Toyota tells the dealership to install shims as a standard practice, so they install shims whether they are needed or not. Customer complaints about noise lead them to do this. They are not needed as a function to braking. The other shop left them off to save you money.

If you feel that $45 is a lot of money, then you can do the rear drum adjustment and clean yourself. Otherwise, have it done by the dealer when they are doing the front.

I work at a brake manufacturer, so I do it all myself, but $45 to avoid the hassle is worth it sometimes. ;)
 
#14 ·
I work at a Toyota dealer. Every brake job that we do, we install new shims, the factory pads normally dont come with the shim kit. I have installed toyota pads with out shims per the customer and have had them come back due to brake nosie.

The only toyota pads that come with shims are the TRD pads, but they currently dont make them for the camry. We tend to use the TRD pads alot on the Corollas and have had no issues with them so farl.
 
#15 ·
Thank you for posting. I understand that I do have the option to tell the dealer not to charge me for installing the shim kit. The consequence would be brake noise. Since there was no shim kit prior to dealer doing the brake job, the "noise" we are talking about is whatever it was before I brought in my car, correct? Or are we talking about different kind of noise, post brake job?


I understand you are saying that rear drum adjustment and cleaning is absolutely worth it because it saves money long-term? Do you have links that show DIY instructions for both adjustment/cleaning and the entire brake job. Same poeple were saying previously that the entire brake job can be DIY.

I would like to look at what all it involves to see whether this is worth it for me to look into (I have no experience).
 
#16 · (Edited)
Depending on where you live the pads may actually be supplied to the dealer network through an outside supplier and boxed as Toyota pads. The OEM factory pads are almost always a weird color (Green, blue, pink, burgundy) and do not come with shims. Factory shims can be reused on these over an over again. The other type are the third party pads that come with shims in the box. These pads are not what the car came with. Just a generic (probably ceramic) brake pad kit boxed as Toyota.

I always re use shims and if they don't have them I always get OEM shims. They are the best quality and are reusable over and over again. Some pads come with shims preinstalled and usually if I still have the Toyota shims I will remove the preonstalled and install the Toyota shims. I have 108K on my original Corolla brakes. A perfect example of the need for shims is off a recent brake job I did. The car had no shims and perfect pads and rotors. The lack of a shim caused a vibration that caused a major squeal that sounded like something was stuck in the brakes. Got some Toyota brakes and shims that I had lying around and no issues after a year.

Those who don't use shims are lucky. To me it's like saying "I never lock my door and no one ever broke in". And then you do it and someone cleans you out. If shims weren't necessary every manufacturer woudnt install them and go through several revisions redesigning them

As for cleaning and adjusting rear. I do it everytime as well. On your Camry i was taught that if the adjuster is accessd from behind the backing plate adjust with the wheel on. If the adjuster is accesed from in front of the drum like yours adjust with wheel off.

If you check our the 9th gen Corolla section I made a DIY for cleaning and adjusting rear brakes and replacing your own front brakes. Slight differences in your car but the concept is the same and can save you money if you didn't do them already.
 
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