Hi all,

how often do ES330 owners find you end up having to change brake pads and rotors.?

I have had my car 3 years now. the brake pads have had good life, but are ready to be changed. I have a feeling that I will be told also that the rotors are too rusted and will need to be replaced too....

Bostonsnowboarder
2005 ES 330

 

I changed mine around 60-65k.

 

How many miles have you put on the rotors? They can usually be resurfaced if it's not worn down too much. All you would have to do is change pads.

 

It depends on your driving style. I have 56K on my 02 ES and I have not replaced the pads or rotors. The more aggressive you drive, the more often your going to have to change them.

 

exactly. I had 230k miles on my 97 before I changed out the original rotors and I'm pretty sure the could have been turned but I found a cheap deal on brembo blanks at the time.

 

since this talk about brake pads and rotors what is a good brand? I saw ebay selling rotor and break pads together for like 120 bucks.

 

OEM, unless you want a big Brembro Kit on it.

 

you can either go OEM or brembo blanks for rotors and just stick with OEM pads. They're cheap and are more than enough as far as stopping power goes.

 

I just bought OEM pads and Brembo rotors for all four corners. When you buy the rotors make sure they have the tapped holes in them for removal later on. I noticed a lot of places offer replacement rotors that are missing said holes. I also noticed the front rotors on my car don't have the holes in them so I'm hoping I don't have any trouble removing them to put the new ones on....
Martin

 

Just took wife's car with 42K miles on it for "routine" service and was told by Pohanka Lexus in Chantilly, VA that "new brakes are needed/rotors need turning/new tires/alignment with new tires/new battery" cost $2050! My much larger and substantially heavier 2008 GMC Yukon XL Denali hasn't needed any of these items and has 60K miles. Is this that poor a vehicle or are we being sold the proverbial "Brooklyn bridge"?

 

lol @ 2k for brakes.

I know OEM is expensive. I was quote 88$/rotor on my 2001 from Toyota, would love to see what Lexus would quote me.

I bought four white-box rotors for ~100$, and GOOD pads for 120$ [ceramic], much less than 2K...

Anyways, that is what i will be doing from now on, on all my next cars. White box & good pads. Rotors are rotors they're all made by the same people. Just be easy on the rotors for the first few thousand miles so they don't warp and you break the pads in.

 

As mentioned it all depends on how and where the car is driven.

Most manufactures no longer recommend cutting rotors -- and if they are within specification and do not exhibit any warping you can just replace the pads.


Many rotors are vented and they don't have much extra to cut ...... and if they are warped -- it will come back anyway.

My 05 es330 had a little over 40k and the fronts were getting close -- I ordered OE front and rear pads online for about $45.00 each and had my local guy install them with the new tires I purchased from Tire Rack. I paid a little over $200.00 for labor on the whole job.

The car has about 72k on it now and the rotors are sill full size with absolutely no lip at all -- so I will most likely just replace the pads again. The OE pads from Lexus are soft -- but it unusual to be able to replace them a third time on the same rotors.

Obviously if you have any pulsing or a lip on the rotors you will be looking at replacing the rotors.

Normally I have had the best luck as far as longevity with OE brake parts - on all my cars. The German cars normally come with harder pads so you can often get longer life out of them but the pads eat into the rotors - so you end up replacing everything.

I have an 2000 es300 with 225k on it -- the car is in amazing condition. The rear brakes/ rotors needed to be replaced and the fronts could go a bit. I decided to order OE front and rear pads from an online dealer and Brembo rotors from Autohauz. With this many miles ... how much can the car have left - so I diid not go with OE rotors. the Brembo rotors are like $45.. each vs $100.00 for the OE -- you can get some as cheap as $20.00 for the car. So I replaced everything -- Although I was disappointed that one set of the Brembo's were made in China vs Italy -- but they still looked to be high quality. So all the parts were less than $300.00 and it was about $175 to install. The dealers are crazy with some service costs!!

Good luck!

 

How the heck are you guys wearing your brakes out so quickly? Do you drive paper routes? My '98 went ~122K on the factory pads and rotors. The brakes in my '05 (~68K now) still look new. Our Highlander is at ~103K, I just replaced the original pads (not the rotors) last summer.

And beer is beer.

I guarantee if you held an OEM Toyota rotor in one hand, and a cheap $20 AutoZone Chinese rotor in the other, you'd see/feel a difference.

 

^^ they're not the same but similar. [like comparing OEM to aftermarket Brembo, toyota ones will be heavier if anything] The reason i spent so little is because i know people within the industry that get me good parts at cost.

Otherwise, i'd end up paying closer to the tune of 200$ for the same rotors i bought. I still don't see the justification in paying 80$/rotor AT COST from Toyota when i had the next best aftermarket equivalent for less. It just doesn't make sense to me. If they last me 5K less than the Toyota ones would, i'm still ahead.

Same thing for brake pads, i spent 120$ on really good ceramic brakes. You're gonna tell me that they're no good because i shopped around?

 

You can have a huge difference in the rotors.

And harder pads can cause all kinds of problem -- personally I'm not a fan of many ceramic pads.