My wife has a 2005 Highlander with 60,000 miles and I have never changed the brake pads. Is this the norm? I would have thought I would have heard the little noise maker scrapping the disk by now.

I have a 2004 and just had the breaks done at 60k. It all depends on how much highway vs city driving you do.
When you have your tires rotated, or oil changed, don't they tell you how much pad is left during their 'safety check'?

My wife Toy HL is a 2001 and I did the first job around 65K miles in 2005. Just this pass summer, I changed it for the second time at a little over 145K miles. Within the last year or so, we were getting a lot of brake wrapping during highway speed too. I did the whole brake job change with new rotors, calipers, and pads on all four wheels. Hope this help and plus we live in the snow belt state. That's a factor to all new part too after nine years of ownership.

Depends on driving style. Obviously, your wife doesn't drive poorly :-) With a lite foot, those OE pads do last a long time!

Regardless, I still bleed the brakes every year or two at most.

We live in mountainous west coast terrain. On our V6 04 Highlander, the first brake job was at 55k miles with new pads and machined rotors. However, at 75k miles we experienced a corrosion caused front caliper seizure, surprising since our roads are not that heavily salted in winter. Inspection showed all calipers were excessively corroded, and all had to be re-built. However, this is the only problem of any kind we have had with the Highlander in 80k miles and 6.5 years. In future we will get a caliper inspection done annually. I still believe it is worthwhile to replace the brake fluid annually, even though it does not appear to have staved off this particular seizure problem. Maybe the Toyota brake fluid the dealer put into the Highlander is not as low moisture absorption as it should be. Our previous 1990 Camry went 250,000 miles (when we sold it) without a re-build of the brake hydraulics, or brake corrosion problems, in the exact same terrain as the Highlander, and I changed its brake fluid annually also, however always using Castrol low moisture absorption brake fluid!

Brake wear is dependent on a # of variables -- driver, city/highway, road conditions, traffic conditions (nightmare here in CA), weather, preventive maintaince etc. I would think 60-80K would be the max one can get from pads. Bleeding every 2 yrs is a great PM exercise, it all is done in 30 minutes and you just need a partner willing to pump the brakes (and complain all day like my wife that her leg is sore).

Funny this thread should be brought up. I just checked my friend's wife's 2004
Highlander as he said the brakes were pulsating and making a grinding noise.

He's wishing she told him when it was squealing. I'll be starting the job Tuesday.
New front and rear pads as well as four new brake discs at a cost of about
$700 for parts. She has 96K on it and he says he doesn't ever remember changing
the pads. It shows.

John

04 HL- my was 90% freeway mileage. travel about 80 miles a day. it now had 108K without any brake noise...plan to bring to a dealer if i ever hear it

Replace pads when they wear out. But, don't forget the bleed the brakes every couple years.

My Wife has 80,000 miles on the 2005 V-6 all wheel drive. The front brake pads are original and still show about 50% of the original thickness left. The BACK ones are about 75% worn out. Go figure that. Just the opposite I would have guessed.
She must be easy on the brakes! Still lots of "bite" and pedal effort is moderate and quiet.
Amazed in Spokane WA