Auto Repair Garages
What do I need to know before I take a Toyota Sienna’s grinding brakes in for repair?
When the brakes are applied on a 1999 Toyota Sienna, there is a horrific grinding noise. A pretty loud grinding noise. My strong belief is that the brakes are well past their useful life, and have probably been driven to the point where the repair is going to be expensive.
So, now, before I take it into a shop and “trust” someone to diagnose and repair the problem, I am wondering if I can pull the wheels and see how much damage is involved. Is there anyone who can give me a laundry list of items to look at, what okay/not okay looks like, and… maybe even a very rough cost magnitude if it is known?
For what it is worth, I am not a mechanic but I can easily get a jack take a wheel off and look at things. It sure would be nice to know something when I am dealing with an auto repair shop. At the moment, I am a sitting duck for a dishonest garage.
The only thing you need to know is your bank balance.
The rotors are shot. You need pads, rotors, probably new calipers, and if the grinding was caused by a faulty master cylinder, you will need one of those too. There is a good chance that contamination got into the brake lines on at least one of the calipers due to the drawback of brake fluid from excessive caliper piston movement, so you may even need a new brake line. That is of course the worst case scenario.
All in all I would roughly guess at a 600 to 800 dollar repair bill, but it may be more.
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