Thanks for the replies everyone.

This is Burdick Lexus in Syracuse. It's interesting to note that none of their recommendations are on the paper work they gave me, which seems odd that they don't want to document them.

 

"2. This is correct. The sliders if not properly lubed will cause seizing of the calipers (the heat from the friction). I had this start happening on another vehicle, caught in time. Took me 2 hrs of time on both wheels and .10c worth of grease."

So, this sounds like something I should look at. They wanted $90 to do this service, which is worth it for 2 hours of my time. But I'm still a little confused about the sandblasting. What is that about?

 

The throttle plate service is suppose to clean out the gum and carbon build up around the plates that will cause it to stick at times. This is usually a 2 step process first they clean the throttle plates and then they run a bottle of additive thru a vac hose to try to burn off carbon build up inside the throttle body kinda like seafoam. It wont make you lose control if you don't do it it'll just give you better throttle response but i dont see a 16k lexus that will need the service yet at toyota we usually do it at 50-60k. For the brakes I think that it should be enough just to lube the slider pins. You wont have to go that far sandblasting the caliper. It might be lacking lubration on the pins and inside the rubber fittings causing it to not slide as easy as it should

 

Ask them why was the engine air filter not included in the 15k service?

That is what we call a brake pad clean and lube and is generally covered in the 4yr/50k warranty for brake squeak concerns. We take care of it as long as the vehicle doesn't have brakes less than 6mm. 5mm and under means the pads are going to wear unevenly and could create noises. Although there is a possibility that the cleaned pad to caliper surface contacts could help maintain a smoother movement across the surface, we've found that pad taper wear will be there even if the caliper has 8 pistons in it. It helps to reduce this sort of wear which helps in a firmer brake pedal through out its pad life but you will still have uneven wear. BTW, we don't recommend this to our clients for maintenance. And the Lexus techs don't have the ability to charge whatever they feel like doing so that day. The prices are made up in a management's office. Most of us are well aware that the people you don't work with are the ones making decisions on how you will work in your work areas.

Yeah, that'll happen.