I ordered front and rear brake pads from Irontoad earlier this week. Cost 113.95. Waiting for delivery should be early thsi next week. Car has almost 30k on it and brakes work fine but I will pull a front wheel next weekend and check the pads.

In prepping for the project I spent another 10 bucks at Autozone for roll of paper shop towels, can of gumout aerosol brake cleaner and 2 small packs of brake grease.

I also called local Lexus parts manager, told him about my plan. He said I could safely reuse the old pad shims and the retaining cotter pin style clip. I told him I was not gonna turn the rotors as they were perfectly smooth and he seemed unconcerned.

I have researched the work and read the pad replacement thread - looks pretty simple for just doing pads. This will be my first "brake job" on a car - I have done a couple of motorcycles years ago. I will report back how it goes.

 

it is very easy.the hardest part is jacking it up and taken the wheels off.have fun.if you are having all four wheels in the air,be a good time to change oil,rear diff fluid and coolant.all also easy.

 

The Toyota OEM brake pads arrived from Iron Toad. UPS delivery - took about 5 days. I jacked the front driver side up. Pulled the tire, pulled the retaining pin and inspected the front brake pad. It looked almost full thickness - maybe 75% of pad was left. Car currently at 29k. So I put the old pad back in and will check again at 40k miles. I did not check rear but I have to assume the rear has even less wear as the front brakes do most of the work. I am not surprised at the minimal brake wear, I drive my car easy and avoid using the brakes by driving very smooth and thinking ahead. If you commonly accelerate into red lights, slowed traffic, tailgate folks, etc. - your brakes will wear 2-3x as fast.

It does look like the front pads will be really easy to replace. Once the car is jacked up and the tire is off, this seems to be literally a 15 min job per brake assembly/side. The most difficult part is jacking up the car and dismounting and then remounting the giant heavy tire...I was sweating bullets wrestling that wheel back on the wheel studs.

 

Couldn't agree more that driving style is huge for wear on many components: brakes, tires, fuel, nerves haha. I also like to look as far down the road as possible and plan for stops and starts where I know the lights. One thing I have yet to master is engine braking on hills, I sometimes forget.

Had a flat last week and put on the full size spare. The weight of the wheel was hard to hoist up while trying to align the holes with the studs. Also has the dangerous potential to use the wrong lower back muscles. I've devised a method where I sit on a sturdy cooler or chair close to the wheel and let the bottom of the tire sit on the toes of my runners, rim paralell to my shins a couple inches away. This way I use my calves and arms to lift it while being able to watch the holes. Just a way of dealing with the weight! Learned this from nightmare truck tires

Thanks for the writeup, I'm sure I'll be looking at this in another 15-20K.

 

JW, you'd better check those rear brakes after all those smoky power-brake burnouts you do.

 

Power brake burnouts...how did you know? Those days are long, long gone but I do remember them well. 18 years old - doing burnouts in my Dodge Challenger in front of the local Catholic girls high school. The Challenger's speedo reading 40-50 mph standing still - rear tires lighting up big plumes of smoke. It was a great trick until I did it once too often and completely blew the rear end out of it. Took most of my 1.85/hour paychecks that summer to get it fixed.

Now I'm the little old bald headed geezer in the Lexus grampa-mobile.

 

Somehow, I knew...

 

HA! That's great! I recommend finding that Challenger and pulling some more burnouts! I have a 69 RR in the garage for just that purpose (on weekends) ..... (once a year)... (with special tires...those originals cost too much!)

Cept I can't do it in front of the girl's Catholic high school anymore... somehow it's frowned upon now...

 

I would not assume that. My car had new sets of brakes when I purchased them 32K miles ago and the rears on mine wore sooner than the fronts. It's so easy to check, so just check to make sure. You don't want the sensors tripping and having to spend another $60-120 for the sensor.