Quote:
Can someone please explain to me why when I went to the dealer last week they told me that my rear brakes needed to be replaced. I only have 27,000 miles on my car and Im not stupid enough to ride with the emergency brake on . They said that they were pretty bad... None the less because I am pretty stupid about cars I payed the 150.00. Can this be right or was I the sucker of the day? 
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27,000 miles is very low miles for rear brakes to go out. I'd have done them myself if they needed it, but failing that, i would walk right out to the service bay and take a look at them and not believe what the service guy/idiot/crook is telling you.
On the Camry with 4 wheel discs, remember that the e-brake has its own seperate set of brake shoes and these are drum brakes. They are inside a drum inside the rotor. Thats right, you have a disc and drum combo-in-oneon the rear wheels. The e-brake is a small drum brake so maybe thats what they were talking about fixing. If the e-brake got left on even once while driving, this might have been long enough to wear them out - have you ever lent this car to somebody else to drive?
You need a minimum of 5 to 10 mm of pad lining to be good for a while, and this is what you should have had left, at this mileage. Unless all your driving is stop and go, on mountain roads and hills, and you carry heavy loads - but this part only applies to the real brakes not the e brake, unless it were stuck!
If they were "pretty bad" at this mileage then maybe one or both calipers were stuck, and that might be a warranty issue. Maybe you did get ripped off, there's a whole lot of crooked shops out there, after all.
Next time just say you want to think about it and have somebody honest pull your wheels and check your linings. Better yet learn to fix these things youself if possible.
