Nice. Thanks.

 

I just swapped over to my summer wheels and since I'm at about 35K km now and figured it's about time to do brake cleaning, re-greasing and inspection. I typically do this every 1-2 years. This post is more for tips and observations, there's plenty of tutorials out there for those who've never DIY brakes.

View attachment 381404


If you're changing your REAR BRAKE PADS you have to put the Electronic Parking Brake Actuator into Service Mode. This allows you to compress the rear caliper pistons. My pads had a lot of meat left but I did this step anyway since this was the first brake service.

To enter SERVICE MODE, jack up the car and take off your rear wheels, then do following procedure:

To begin your Parking Brake must be disengaged. If it's engaged, release it with the parking brake switch on the center console and then turn the car completely off.

With foot OFF brake pedal, hit Start Button 2 times. Car will be in Run position without starting the engine.

Within 8 seconds, with foot ON brake pedal, PULL UP Parking Brake Switch 3 times ... then ... PUSH DOWN Switch 3 times. Parking light indicator on dash will now rapidly blink.

Next, with foot OFF brake pedal, PUSH and HOLD DOWN Parking Brake Switch for 5 seconds. You will hear the EPB Actuator motor work for several seconds. When it's done you are now successfully in SERVICE MODE. Parking light indicator on dash will now slowly blink.

Now turn off the car and complete the brake job.

To RE-ACTIVATE the Electronic Parking Brake hit the Start Button 2 times, with foot OFF brake pedal, PULL and HOLD UP Parking Brake Switch for 5 seconds. You will hear the EPB Actuator motor work for several seconds. When it's done you've successfully exited SERVICE MODE.



To remove the grey Electronic Parking Brake connector, push down on the square tab in the middle while pulling the sides and it'll come straight out. Don't pull on the black connector. There was some crap in there which I cleaned it out with MAF Sensor cleaner, any electronics cleaner will do.

View attachment 381409 View attachment 381408 View attachment 381410


The EPB Assembly makes accessing the top bolt a little more difficult.

View attachment 381405 View attachment 381406 View attachment 381407

The outer bolt screw is a 14mm, the slide pin bolt is 17mm.
You won't be able to get an impact gun or right angle impact in there. I tried with a swivel and wouldn't fit.
I used a short 14mm socket on the outer screw. A long box wrench would also work nicely and provide adequate torque but I only have stubbies.
I used Knipex adjustable gripping pliers for the slide bolt since I don't have a slim 17mm wrench. A standard 17mm wrench is too wide. The Knipex pliers is their 7inch model and fits perfectly in there.

The 2 slide pins are different. The top pin has a plastic bushing while the lower pin doesn't. (I believe this is opposite on the front calipers, will confirm later) The bottom pin on both rears were very tight coming out. Top pins came out smooth. Cleaned the pins and re-greased and all are sliding nice and smooth now. Brake pads had even wear so no issues there.

For slide bolts and boots I use Super Lube Silicone Brake Grease with PTFE

Lubricating the brake pad guides on the caliper bracket and caliper ears I use Permatex Ceramic Extreme Brake Grease (purple stuff). Toyota doesn't grease these parts from factory so there's a little corrosion buildup on them. I just cleaned them with a little brass brush and brake cleaner.


Replacing and bleeding the brake fluid was straight forward on my V6 model.

View attachment 381413

Bleeder screw is 8mm. I used 1 qt of fluid for both rears.
On the HYBRID model there's a special bleeding procedure.



I'll be doing my fronts sometime before summer so I'll post up a similar thread later.

Great post and job esp the EPB disable/enable details. Loved the details on the pins and what you used throughout post for lubrication. Looking forward to your post for the fronts. I have a full set of new PowerStop Z23 pads ready to go so very timely !!

 

Loved the details on the pins and what you used throughout post for lubrication.

Glad you mentioned it, I looked up the factory diagram just to confirm the pin locations. This is opposite on the Honda's I've worked on, where the bushing is put on the lead pin (bottom pin for the rear brakes). So I had to double check everything. I can see a shop mechanic mixing them up if they're working on various brands all the time.



4th gen Highlander V6 REAR BRAKE - pin with bushing on TOP.

4th gen Highlander V6 FRONT BRAKE - pin with bushing on BOTTOM

 

According to the diagram , those are not reusable parts

 

any updates on this?

 

If you're looking to do your front pads it should be pretty straight forward. There's no EPB to deal with. Go for it and post some pics when you're done.
Might be another month or so before I get around to doing my fronts.

I've been working on my Acura RDX and I found out there's no factory cheat code to put the rear brakes into service mode, either need an expensive scantool or do it manually by disassembling the EPB housing and turning the gear by hand. So thumbs up to Toyota for making it easy for DIYers.

 

YEP...ok will do .....we just bought a 2021 Vespa GTS 300 HPE and i'll be trailering it behind the HL using my aluminum 6 x 10 yard trailer. So the pads are to help with the stopping,,,just in case... total weight is only 1200 lbs so no issue with weight, but i like to be safe

 

Here is a link to the 4th gen Highlander rear brakes service done by LightFreak earlier this year. I though it would be a good idea to have all the info in one discussion thread

4th Gen Highlander V6 Front Brake Service tips

Here are some pics and tips from the first front brake job I did recently on my '21 Highlander XSE V6. I'm at 41K km. This is a continuation of my post for the Rear Brake Service I did a few months ago...

www.toyotanation.com

 

Thank you so much lightfreak for all the detail. You sure are nice for taking the time to explain this to everyone!

 

Thank you! I really appreciate people who take the time to do these write-ups. This post should be stickied for future reference.

 

Update on brake service on my '20 Limited FWD. Finally got around to performing the pad upgrade as i will be towing a 700 lb trailer for my Can Am Spyder.
Some bkg...for the past 6 months the parking brake has been making a rather loud squeaking noise as it engages when you place the vehicle into park. i wanted to figure that outr while the pad service was happening.
I did both fronts and rear pads using Powerstop Z23 pads and brake hardware sourced from RockAuto.
Fronts were straight forward. Car has 22K on it ( new in Sept 2020 ) and I did find some rust on the hubs. Took care of that with brass brush and a little spray primer . FYI the Z23 pads already have the shim bonded to the pads. So the OEM ones are not needed. Dont make the mistake of trying to add the OEM shims. Wont work. Also the springs are a bit stronger than the OEM so the pads tend to move out during the install. I fixed that by using a small sliding clamp to hold the pads ( with springs ) after it installed the top sliding bolt loosely then rotated the caliper down enough to hold the pads while i installed the lower spring. Voila done. NOTE the sliding pins were stuck so I had to remobilize them by working them in and out. Once done , they slide easily.
The rears were pretty easy too. I followed the writeup for putting the parking brake into service mode first then jacked up the rear. Pads replacement is straight forward too. Just remember to disconnect the electrical connector for the parking brake, then remove the two sliding pin bolts and pull the caliper up and off. I found the sliding pins to be stuck on the rear too. Actually stuck pretty hard...There were no springs on the rear so no issues with pad replacement.
On both ends of the car I used a large Irwin sliding clamp to move the pistons in. Re bed the pads according to the Powerstop instructions then left the car overnight. Bonus was that the parkiing brake noise was GONE.. so i would say if you have that on your 4th gen HY, check out the sliding pins to see if they are stuck...

 

i am posting up and update as related to teh parking brake noise. It has now returned after 4 months. I will be looking into the parking brake itself to see if it has a piston that gets dirty or if it has pins that need re-greasing. It might also be that the plastic housing of the parking brake is the issue itself.

Can someone post up a schematic and parts list for the parking brake for the 4th gen?

@lightfreak have you delved into this at all?

 

Is anyone able to provide the torque specs?

 

Brake Torque Specifications for 2021 Toyota Highlander
Front Brake Torque Specs

Component	Torque Value
Brake Caliper Bracket Bolts	78 Nm (58 ft-lbf)
Brake Caliper Slide Pin Bolts	43 Nm (32 ft-lbf)
Front Wheel	103 Nm (76 ft-lbf)

Rear Brake Torque Specs

Component	Torque Value
Brake Caliper Bracket Bolts	78 Nm (58 ft-lbf)
Brake Caliper Slide Pin Bolts	43 Nm (32 ft-lbf)
Rear Wheel	103 Nm (76 ft-lbf)

 

Brake Torque Specifications for 2021 Toyota Highlander
Front Brake Torque Specs

Component	Torque Value
Brake Caliper Bracket Bolts	78 Nm (58 ft-lbf)
Brake Caliper Slide Pin Bolts	43 Nm (32 ft-lbf)
Front Wheel	103 Nm (76 ft-lbf)

Rear Brake Torque Specs

Component	Torque Value
Brake Caliper Bracket Bolts	78 Nm (58 ft-lbf)
Brake Caliper Slide Pin Bolts	43 Nm (32 ft-lbf)
Rear Wheel	103 Nm (76 ft-lbf)

Brake Torque Specifications for 2021 Toyota Highlander
Front Brake Torque Specs

Component	Torque Value
Brake Caliper Bracket Bolts	78 Nm (58 ft-lbf)
Brake Caliper Slide Pin Bolts	43 Nm (32 ft-lbf)
Front Wheel	103 Nm (76 ft-lbf)

Rear Brake Torque Specs

Component	Torque Value
Brake Caliper Bracket Bolts	78 Nm (58 ft-lbf)
Brake Caliper Slide Pin Bolts	43 Nm (32 ft-lbf)
Rear Wheel	103 Nm (76 ft-lbf)

The numbers I got from the dealer were much higher for the Bracket bolt and slightly different for the caliper bolts - Front 142/33 ft lbs, Rear 111/25 ft lbs. Saw these same numbers on another thread.
I used them and nothing broke. ???

 

Well chatGPT makes mistakes LOL

PS 142? Wow!!!