Just did front brakes on my wife's 97 xl with 133k miles on orginal brakes. Hard to believe but I jumped the gun. The wear indicators had not kicked in yet but I had mic'd components a year ago and figured now was about right. Bought OEM pads and shims from Gary Toyopartsman in Ga. Well on further inspection at dissasembly I could have gone at least another 10k. Rotors were barely worn and true. So all that was required was to clean everything and install new parts. Once again I learn to let some of these things go longer than you would think is practical. These brakes are very robust as I compared pads to OEM Tacoma pads I have for a buddy and the Avalon's are larger. The result was perfect brakes before and after. OEM is the only way to go. How can one argue with this performance from OEM components. Next time I wont be performing maintenance until the wear indicators kick in.
my front rotors got warped. so i turned my rotors and noticed my pads still had a ton of life left in them i was very pleasantly surprised how these cars don't use brakes too much. i also never realized that they use a dual piston caliper set up. my original calipers are still working great at 160k. gotta love toyota quality.
If you bleed and flush the system every two years you will rarely have caliper issues. I use valveline synthetic. And yes the dual piston caliper is very robust and promotes even/efficient
pad wear.
i replaced my brake lines a couple years ago (ny car and they rusted out) and i am a toyota tech so i used toyota fluid ( it was free ). but you are right about replacing the fluid. brake fluid is hygroscopic (absorbs water). so changing it will help prevent a caliper piston from seizing up.
dual-piston calipers are twice as likely to hang and twice as hard to rebuild, yourself. i do not recommend rebuilding your front calipers. buy some, instead.
there's a lot of room to kid yourself about avvy brakes...
drive it in town. stick your finger through the wheel spokes to the surface of the rotor. are all of them the same temperature? if not, SOMETHING'S WRONG
the brakes should be cool to the touch after a highway cruise of a few minutes without using the brakes, except to pull off the road. if even one of them is hot, SOMETHING'S WRONG.
put the car in neutral on a level surface - a parking lot, somewhere. push on the top of a tire - push it forward. trouble moving the car? SOMETHING'S WRONG it should move with very little effort...
there should be absolutely no shimmy when applying the brakes. there should be absolutely no vibration... or "head nodding" as the car stops. no squeaks...
as old as these cars are i certainly would recommend hoses, calipers, ceramic pads (no brake dust!) and new rotors, all the way around, when doing the brakes.
brakes require very little mechanical ability to install. they require few tools. anyone with a friend who is a half-a**ed mechanic can do brakes, for the price of the parts.
the avvy is different, in the brakes department, in only one way i have noticed - do not pump the brakes as you bleed them. instead, close the bleeder, have the person sitting in it put the pedal down and hold it, open the bleeder, then close it. repeat. start with the right rear, then left rear, then right front and finally left front. no power bleeder is required, even if you have the ABS system.
another thing to remember is the pads need to FLOAT in the mounting brackets. some new pads need to be held to a grinder on the left-right edges, so that they will float freely in the clips. there should be no problem getting the pads to go into the bracket, between the clips.
you need to remove the pins (the things the bolts that secure the calipers go into) and grease the he77 out of them, as you do the brakes. i prefer molybdenum di-sulphide grease.
95-97 Avalons have dual piston front calipers, 98-99 have single piston. When my pads are done, probably by next year, I'm getting dual piston remans and mounting brackets from the 95-97 avalon. I've noticed after installing lowering springs the brakes are much better. My car is on its 2nd set of pads and the original rotors.
bob2- are you talking about moly grease? I was taught in Auto Tech school to only use that on the contact points on the pads. 3M Silicone paste is what we used to lubricate the slide pins.
Permatex has a synthetic brake grease that I use. My original observation was that sometimes we may over do some work that we think is necessary, when with Toyotas at least in my experience (6 cars over 30 plus years) there's a lot of truth to the saying "if it's not broke don't fix it". There's no reason to replace rotors that are still almost new and true. Also if the factory pads give this level of perfomance why take a crap shot on after market unless you really "think" you need to? I've heard plenty of stories of people making problems/wasting money in an effort to upgrade. And as a sidenote I bleed the avy's ABS the same way I do all brakes (pump the pedal starting with the furthest wheel from the master cylinder) and have always had great results. When the brake fluid is flushed regularly my experience is the calipers last a long time. 3 of my Toyotas have been over 300k and i've never had to replace a caliper on any of them. inspect,inspect,inspect
your brakes are not the simple things they started out being... in tech school, you probably realize that even more than i!
your proportioning valve is set up for single-piston. you might change that, but what else? resign yourself, as i have, to the fact the only engineers get to change things. mechanics can only make things as they were designed to be.
i've seen all kinds of guys that bought high-performance parts, that didn't match up to their cars. i've seen that KILL PEOPLE. dead serious. for example, you might install super-grippy pads, meant for the racetrack, on only the front. then, later, a panic stop might cause the wheels to lock up, resulting in a crash... or - the classic - you might put a big heavy motor on a suspension that is old and worn, and was never designed to carry that much weight, in new condition!
i'm sure the tech school is right about the pin lube. i just do what i've done before - lol - and it seems to work. wish i read that before i replaced the whole dang brake system (minus the master cylinder)
i just had a situation where pumping the brakes did not work. i seems to depend on how long they have had to drain out. my system sat open, overnight. that might be why i had to use the simple way (not pumping) to bleed them
i've been trying to be rid of a slight shimmy in my front end for over a year. now i'm really enjoying driving my avvy. the brakes were a thing, on the way...
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1999 Toyota Avalon
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