About 10 days ago I got the front brakes repaired at an auto repair facility (I won't mention the name, because they're dumb a$$es and that would make me one too by association. Let's just say that it's a well know national chain).

When I got my truck back, I had a problem (I reported this befor on TS). The front bakes - the left side made a chirping noise while driving and had a majorly soft brake pedal I took it back to the moron collective to see if they could fix what they screwed up. They re-bled the system - which they didn't do right the first time, and rechecked the brakepads. They couldn't find the problem.
Well, after 3 days and 3trys they had no idea what the problem was and actually gave me my money back.:faint:

From there, I went directly to the Toyota dealership to have them try to figure out what the heck was going on with my brakes.

I told them my story and within 2 seconds they knew what it was. The national chain repair facility put in real aggressive ceramic pads and didn't use any shims to make the pads fit correctly. This gave me the bad chirping noise. The service writer said that our Tundras are designed to have semi-metallic pads - that ceramics will make noise and chew up the rotors every time.

After further inspection the service writer called me up and asked me if the former place resurfaced the rotors. I told him they did. He said that because of the aggressive ceramic pads they used he would need to resurface the rotors again. He said that this would bring me very close to the minimum specs for rotor thickness and advised me to replace the rotors ($105.00 each, BTW).:cry:

Well I was kind of between a rock and a hard place, so I agreed. So, after 10 days of screwing around with this issue, I finally have it resolved.

How's this sound for fun?

......been there friend
next time have more fun and do it yourself.
not too hard once you get started. just have a friend to help you bleed the brake line and its a snap!

About 10 days ago I got the front brakes repaired at an auto repair facility (I won't mention the name, because they're dumb a$$es and that would make me one too by association. Let's just say that it's a well know national chain).

When I got my truck back, I had a problem (I reported this befor on TS). The front bakes - the left side made a chirping noise while driving and had a majorly soft brake pedal I took it back to the moron collective to see if they could fix what they screwed up. They re-bled the system - which they didn't do right the first time, and rechecked the brakepads. They couldn't find the problem.
Well, after 3 days and 3trys they had no idea what the problem was and actually gave me my money back.:faint:

From there, I went directly to the Toyota dealership to have them try to figure out what the heck was going on with my brakes.

I told them my story and within 2 seconds they knew what it was. The national chain repair facility put in real aggressive ceramic pads and didn't use any shims to make the pads fit correctly. This gave me the bad chirping noise. The service writer said that our Tundras are designed to have semi-metallic pads - that ceramics will make noise and chew up the rotors every time.

After further inspection the service writer called me up and asked me if the former place resurfaced the rotors. I told him they did. He said that because of the aggressive ceramic pads they used he would need to resurface the rotors again. He said that this would bring me very close to the minimum specs for rotor thickness and advised me to replace the rotors ($105.00 each, BTW).:cry:

Well I was kind of between a rock and a hard place, so I agreed. So, after 10 days of screwing around with this issue, I finally have it resolved.

How's this sound for fun?

"ceramics will make noise and chew up the rotors every time."


That is the biggest lies of crap and totally Not true on his statement. I have ceramics on my break's pad's and Never had any issues running into that issue Period. Toyota makes such a crappy pad I wouldn't ever review them much less buy into there part's . Ceramics are much,much better for Heat vs semi-metallic pads and wear much better in the long run. I've had Tundra since they came out and Wouldn't look into Toyota Pos Pad's ever again. :amen:.

Also when you change pad's you always resurface your rotors it's makes better since in the long run and Your new pad's wear better too. Sounds like the Guy at the Toyota Stealership wanted to make you a sell. In the long run either I look at this he doesn't know what he is talking about on Ceramic pad's there are the pro's and con's about everything but his claim is out of line..

Here's an even better story...took my 02 Tundra in to fix the front diff yesterday. I had just bought the truck a month ago (didn't notice the vibration before I boiught it) and they have agreed to pay for 50% of the repair cost to get rid of the vibe. I get a call a couple hours later and they tell me that the brakes are vibrating a bit (i knew this, but it's not that bad yet so i was going to let it ride for a while) and that the rotors and drums need to be turned and the rear brakes needed to be adjusted to the tune of $200. So I said i would get back to the girl that called me and immediately called the sales manager that struck the original deal with me for the diff repair. He said he would take care of it.

So, a couple of hours later, I call back 'cause they were supposed to get back to me. I was actually thinking i would have them replace the rotors rather than turning them due to the issues these trucks have with the front rotors anyway. But, when I talked to the service manager (who i think is full of s%&t), he said that the fronts were ok but the backs needed to be cleaned up a bit and adjusted. He said it was taken care of and I must say that they actually did a pretty good job as they feel much better.

It sure left a bad taste in my mouth though. If I had been a normal customer, I would have ended up getting them "fixed" for $200 when they didn't really need it...and I would have likely had to replace the rotors (if i had got them turned) in a few months once they warped due to being undersized even more!!!

I wasn't going to go into how the diff repair is going...well, maybe I will tell you....

Just so it's clear, before I took my truck to the dealership for this work, I had another shop diagnose by diff vibration first and then told the dealership which bearing the other guy (who used to be the service manger at this same dealership) had said was bad. They said "they wanted to make their own opinion of the problem". When the dealership initially diagnosed it, I was pretty sure that they though it was something else...like I said, the service manager seems like he's full of it so it was pretty easy to see through. So i dropped off my truck a couple of days later (because they had to order the parts, not likely the part i told them they needed) with the instruction to fix it and left them a diagram of the bearing that i thought needed to be replaced. I went to pick it up at the end of the day after they told me that they needed more parts but they put it all back together for me so that I can at least drive it for a few days....or in other words, they thought it was fixed and discovered during a test drive that it wasn't fixed.

So, when i showed up I had a copy of the parts diagram for the front end. I asked the service manager to circle the parts he replaced. He hummed and hawed a bit, scratched his head and then circled a bunch of words that included bearing. One thing he didn't circle was the bearing that I told him it was. I mentioned it to him and he said "oh yeah, we replaced that one too". I didn't know what to say after that so I took my keys and left (they didn't actually ask me to pay yet).

I know, it's a long and twisted story...and it's not done yet. I just needed to rant a bit. Anyhow...I hope they can fix this problem and then I will never take another vehicle into this particular dealerhsip again...unless they get a new manager.

Always ask fer the parts they replaced...that way you can see/inspect what the prob was and to be sure they even replaced the parts they said they replaced. ;)

Here's an even better story...took my 02 Tundra in to fix the front diff yesterday. I had just bought the truck a month ago (didn't notice the vibration before I boiught it) and they have agreed to pay for 50% of the repair cost to get rid of the vibe. I get a call a couple hours later and they tell me that the brakes are vibrating a bit (i knew this, but it's not that bad yet so i was going to let it ride for a while) and that the rotors and drums need to be turned and the rear brakes needed to be adjusted to the tune of $200. So I said i would get back to the girl that called me and immediately called the sales manager that struck the original deal with me for the diff repair. He said he would take care of it.

So, a couple of hours later, I call back 'cause they were supposed to get back to me. I was actually thinking i would have them replace the rotors rather than turning them due to the issues these trucks have with the front rotors anyway. But, when I talked to the service manager (who i think is full of s%&t), he said that the fronts were ok but the backs needed to be cleaned up a bit and adjusted. He said it was taken care of and I must say that they actually did a pretty good job as they feel much better.

It sure left a bad taste in my mouth though. If I had been a normal customer, I would have ended up getting them "fixed" for $200 when they didn't really need it...and I would have likely had to replace the rotors (if i had got them turned) in a few months once they warped due to being undersized even more!!!

I wasn't going to go into how the diff repair is going...well, maybe I will tell you....

Just so it's clear, before I took my truck to the dealership for this work, I had another shop diagnose by diff vibration first and then told the dealership which bearing the other guy (who used to be the service manger at this same dealership) had said was bad. They said "they wanted to make their own opinion of the problem". When the dealership initially diagnosed it, I was pretty sure that they though it was something else...like I said, the service manager seems like he's full of it so it was pretty easy to see through. So i dropped off my truck a couple of days later (because they had to order the parts, not likely the part i told them they needed) with the instruction to fix it and left them a diagram of the bearing that i thought needed to be replaced. I went to pick it up at the end of the day after they told me that they needed more parts but they put it all back together for me so that I can at least drive it for a few days....or in other words, they thought it was fixed and discovered during a test drive that it wasn't fixed.

So, when i showed up I had a copy of the parts diagram for the front end. I asked the service manager to circle the parts he replaced. He hummed and hawed a bit, scratched his head and then circled a bunch of words that included bearing. One thing he didn't circle was the bearing that I told him it was. I mentioned it to him and he said "oh yeah, we replaced that one too". I didn't know what to say after that so I took my keys and left (they didn't actually ask me to pay yet).

I know, it's a long and twisted story...and it's not done yet. I just needed to rant a bit. Anyhow...I hope they can fix this problem and then I will never take another vehicle into this particular dealerhsip again...unless they get a new manager.

your vibe problem's are your calipers design used on the 00 to 02 Tundra Toyota updated the part's for 2003.. I know about this problem being i had a lot of early brake problem's on my New 2000 Tundra...

No, I think in this case is isn't my calipers. After they cleaned them up, they work perfect...unless they turned my rotors and didn't tell me about it. I understand that the rear brakes need cleaning and adjustment on a regular basis and if this isn't done, it can have a major impact on the system as a whole.

Hey Csfisher, what were/are the symptons of your bad front axle?? I have an issue w/the steering wheel shaking at speeds about 60mph+ with a drone at about 40-50mph that goes away. I've recently had it aligned, new tires(balanced twice), all front components are tight, 3 mechanics can't find the problem, and i'm out of ideas. All braking components are good and updated so it has nothing to do with the brakes. I'm leaning towards an issue with the front diff since the problem is deffinately in the front-end but everything checks out fine.