Where In So Cal For Brakes?

[pushatam]

I am at 58k miles on my 2001 RX300,

I need my brakes replaced, they squeak like crazy.

Any suggestions on where I should go? Big-O, Sears, Midas, Toyota, Lexus?

I was thinking I should just purcahse the brake pads from toyota or lexus and get it put on somewhere. What is the most economical option? (I dont have the know-how to do it myself :( )

Also, From Midas.com:

"Our brake pads and shoes come with the famous Midas Lifetime Guarantee — once you purchase them at Midas, you will never need to pay for replacements again, so long as you own your car. "

Does this mean they are lifetime brakes? are these good for the car?

[dcfish]

I am at 58k miles on my 2001 RX300,

I need my brakes replaced, they squeak like crazy.

Any suggestions on where I should go? Big-O, Sears, Midas, Toyota, Lexus?

I was thinking I should just purcahse the brake pads from toyota or lexus and get it put on somewhere. What is the most economical option? (I dont have the know-how to do it myself  :( )

Also, From Midas.com:

"Our brake pads and shoes come with the famous Midas Lifetime Guarantee — once you purchase them at Midas, you will never need to pay for replacements again, so long as you own your car. "

Does this mean they are lifetime brakes? are these good for the car?

←

Buy the pads from a discount lexus dealer www.irontoad.com and have them put on at a Toyota dealer , The labor is a lot less expensive and just as good as Lexus stealer. ;)

[stonecutter]

I am at 58k miles on my 2001 RX300,

I need my brakes replaced, they squeak like crazy.

Any suggestions on where I should go? Big-O, Sears, Midas, Toyota, Lexus?

I was thinking I should just purcahse the brake pads from toyota or lexus and get it put on somewhere. What is the most economical option? (I dont have the know-how to do it myself  :( )

Also, From Midas.com:

"Our brake pads and shoes come with the famous Midas Lifetime Guarantee — once you purchase them at Midas, you will never need to pay for replacements again, so long as you own your car. "

Does this mean they are lifetime brakes? are these good for the car?

←

My opinion, and mine only, on the Midas "lifetime guarante" is that it's worthless, brake pads and shoes are cheap and in genreal last a long time, and when they replace your free pads, they'll charge you for other things to make up for the cost, e.g., shaving the rotor, which at least one shop I'd dealt with claims they must do every time they change pads, and while they're at it, they will want to replace pistons, calipers, and what have you. I'm not saying all Midas shops are like that, but just beware.

[Unlisted]

yes and your setting your self up for annoying squeeling noises and shimmys.

[TunedRX300]

I am at 58k miles on my 2001 RX300,

I need my brakes replaced, they squeak like crazy.

Any suggestions on where I should go? Big-O, Sears, Midas, Toyota, Lexus?

I was thinking I should just purcahse the brake pads from toyota or lexus and get it put on somewhere. What is the most economical option? (I dont have the know-how to do it myself  :( )

Also, From Midas.com:

"Our brake pads and shoes come with the famous Midas Lifetime Guarantee — once you purchase them at Midas, you will never need to pay for replacements again, so long as you own your car. "

Does this mean they are lifetime brakes? are these good for the car?

←

Ceramic pads are quiet, www.rockauto.com, for the same $ to pay for OEM pads (marginal at best) I got Akebono Proact Ceramic $49 shipped with this discount code

Rock Auto 5% Off

Go to EF1 in Signal Hills if you don't want to install yourself. They are a approved TireRack installer and very professional.

EF1 Brake Price

$75 per axel, EF1 uses torque wrench (not impact wrench as in many shops including Lexus) to properly torque your wheel nuts and avoid brake rotor warping. Shop is clean and when I have my rotors and pads installed there for $75 , the tech was really careful not to scratch the rotor and wipe everything, including his fingerprints on newly installed rotors, clean afterward.

[monarch]

I was thinking I should just purcahse the brake pads from toyota or lexus and get it put on somewhere. 

←

That's what I do with the Toyotas I own that have drum type rear brakes (since I do not know how to work on drum brakes) . I do not go to department store or tire store or muffler store shops to have them install Toyota brands brake pads or shoes because they'll all try to sell me new brake hardware and in California Toyota brake hardware lasts for 30+ years or 500,000+ miles in my personal experience. Then not only do you get charged for the hardware, you end up with aftermarket quality hardware.

Since genuine Toyota pads don't squeal and squeak, chances are your noisy pads are aftermarket or the squealing noise is coming the wear indicator shim thats rubbing on the brake rotor to warn you the factory original pads are worn out.

According to Toyota the benefits of using genuine Toyota pads are as follows:

a) FRICTION MATERIAL: Genuine Toyota Brake Pads are manufactured with materials designed specifically to maintain the dynamics engineered in your Toyota's brake system. Non-genuine Toyota brake pad material can compromise your Toyota's braking performance and may lead to accelerated rotor wear, excessive brake noise or vibration and pulsation.

B) BACKING PLATES: Genuine Toyota Brake Pads have precision machined backing plates which allow the brake pads to move freely within the calipers for smooth, efficient operation.

c) TOYOTA DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED: Only genuine Toyota Brake Pads are designed and engineered specifically for your Toyota vehicle. In may cases, non-genuine pads are designed for use on a variety of makes and models.

Genuine Toyota pads are not costly. About $50 a set from irontoad.com or newlexusparts.com

I don't hardly consider genuine Toyota pads "marginal" because I've been getting 150,000 - 200,000 miles of life per set of pads and I've never worn out any Toyota brake rotor when I used Toyota pads

[TunedRX300]

Marginal pads because I have bubblings formed under clear coat of my OEM rims. Two Lexus dealers told me dusts from OEM pads are to blame, of course, both of them denied repair under warranty since painting on rims are not covered under paint corrosion warranty.

To be fair, I never has squeak issue with OEM pad. The corrosion is a common one for all semi-metallic pads. That is why I want to go to a different pad material - ceramic, which has less dust than OEM and similiar friction coeficient.

Many owners report Lexus replacement front pads do not have integrated wear indicators - you need to reuse original clip-on wear indicator, forever. This is an unusual design since most shops throw away old shims with used-up pads. Guess what they do with the clip-on indicator? Most of the time tech will throw it away thinking they are old shims. This is a poor design because it is not service friendly. If you talk about wear on rotor by high friction coeficient pads, what about the high possibility of many RX w/o wear indicator and only find out after rotors are damaged by metal on metal contacts.

See what mikey00 found out when he bought Irontoad's OEM pads

RX300 w/o on pad wear indicator

[TunedRX300]

Here is a link to the bubbling problem reported by another member

Corrosive Brake Dusts from OEM pads

For 99-00 RX300, Toyota pad covers only 3/4 of friction surface on rear rotors. Most cars, including Toyota 4 Runner matches rear pad size with rotor friction surface width to maximize ability to stop. Over time, a rust ring with width close to 1.5 cm will form on friction surface. Really ugly to look at since 3/4 of rotor is shining and 1/4 is rust brown.

This is poor design unless someone can come up with a good reason why rear pads are so tiny. A smart designer should at least match the pad size with the existing rotor size so full potential of braking system is utilized.

[mikey00]

Stick with the Lexus OEM pads. As monarch said above they are the best. They have excellent stopping power, low dusting and last a long time. It's also nice to have pads that wear evenly from to rear. Most other cars I have owned wore out the front first. I just changed mine at 75k and could have gone a little longer. This is my second RX. They were equally as good on the first one. Do a search on this and other RX forums. You will find very few complaints and a lot of praise for factory pads.

[TunedRX300]

Another discussion on a TSB on Lexus brake pads making noise.

TSB on Lexus Brake Pads Noise

OEM Brake Pads Shifting Noise TSB