My 2004 GX 470 is coming up to 54,000 km (33,750 miles). The front brake pads and rotors need replacing, and they recommend new rotors because of the weight of the vehicle. The cost for parts and labour is $540 at the Lexus dealer. But a good local garage quoted $400 using after market parts from Japan. I like the lower price, but are aftermarket parts just as good? Is there a better aftermarket brand? Thanks if you can offer some advice.

 

I don't think so, I did not replace rotors until 107,000 miles and that was the fourth pad change. Resurfaced or did nothing the other three times

 

Do a search on brake rotors here and you will find plenty of info on them. I replaced my stock set up with aftermarket drilled/slotted rotors and ceramic pads. So far so good.

 

Thanks Alan553. I'll ask them about keeping the rotors longer. But for the aftermarket parts are you saying they are not as good as genuine Lexus parts?

 

HeavyD, i personally bought ebay rotor and it's just as good as it can gets. I have no problem whatsoever. For brake pads, some like EBC Green pads (I used this), some stay with OEM pads + OEM rotors.

Of course OEM is recommended not required, but if you can get a good non-OEM quality rotors, give it a try. That's what I did, OEM rotor is like $100/piece, I got my non-OEM good quality rotor on ebay for $99.65/BOTH front-rotors. I've been driving it for like 3k miles already, not a single problem *knock on wood*. Also changing pads + rotors at the same time is recommended, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I always did on my 3 Lexus cars.

33,750 miles you already need to replace the brake pads & rotors ? wow how did you drive ?? is your foot on the brake pedal all the time ??

ebay Rotors

EBC green brake pads

 

I replaced rotors with aftermarket, I believe my shop uses Centrex? Are they as good? Who knows, I will let you know next time I need new pads, I only got around 30,000 miles out of my front pads, closer to 45,000 on rear, all depends where you live and drive, our neighborhood, vey hilly, lots of stop signs. My 13 mile ride to work has about 22 traffic lights, I spend a lot of time on the brakes, unfortunately.

 

My advise FWIW...

1) Don't replace the rotors unless you HAVE to. In other words, if your brakes are not pulsing or your steering wheel is not shaking and your GX otherwise brakes smoothly and your rotors are within acceptable tolerances, stick with your rotors until you start experiencing any one of the previously mentioned symptoms. And DO NOT get them resurfaced.

2) And if you have to replace your rotors, I would advise buying OEM. I am a firm believer that you often get what you pay for. The GX rotors are undersized as it is, buying/experimenting w/ non OEM rotors that may likely be made with inferior materials (likely from China) is ill-advised and there is likely NO warranty on them - I learned this the hard and expensive way! If you don't want to pay Lexus, order OEM rotors on-line and have your local shop install them. Alternatively, I would recommend going to a local Toyota dealer and get a quote to install 4-Runner V-8 rotors (same rotors that are on your GX), you might be surprised at the price (this is what I did).

3) If you do not need to replace your rotors yet, just get the pads installed and stick with OEM esp if it's OEM pads that you will have on the rear axle. Mismatching pads that will likely have different friction coefficients is not advisable and it could adversely impact your vehicles handling in an emergency situation. I had some not so pleasant experiences with aftermarket pads, which resulted in removing them with less than 5k mi on them. OEM pads are inexpensive enough and generally speaking they perform very well. Again, you have the option of ordering on-line or going to a Toyota dealer for parts and labor.

Keep in mind that your vehicle's braking system is probably one of if not the most important system on your GX, don't be penny wise and pound foolish. Good luck

 

i would have to respectfully question the quality of OEM vs aftermarket. Auto manufacturers buy things from various vendors that make and market parts throughout the world, where the rotor comes from today, can change tomorrow. Obviously no one has the market on quality as evident by the number of recalls out there, mostly becasue of defects in parts. toyota doesnt manufacture rotors. The best thing to do is, if you avoid the dealer option, pick your shop carefully. A good reputable private shop can certainly compete with the dealer at all levels, quality, warranty etc. Stay away from Midas and other franchises. I have never had a problem with anything, installation or quality from the two shops that i have used. They will use whatever I ask for OEM or aftermarket, I am the paying customer, but I will defer to their experiences with parts, after all they see it all, i just get to see my problems.

 

HeavyD, You need new rotors at 54K miles???

I think your dealer is using you to subsidize his economy, I no longer have much trust in what dealers say after mine tried selling me a new water pump and a new battery.

As far as rotors, I did not even have to resurface mine when replacing pads on both my trucks.

Did your local garage give you a price over the phone or did they actually look at the brakes and say that you need new rotors?

Did you see the old rotors yourself? Do your braked pulsate when applied? Are you pads worn to the metal?

FWIW, I used OEM pads, and will replace rotors with OEM when the time comes. I'm not saying that this is the best way to go, and may not be the cheapest, but since brakes are the crucial safety component of the vehicle, I want to make sure they will perform as designed.

 

Wow!!, thanks for all the advice. OEM vs aftermarket. From the responses I think it depends on the need and budget. If it was for performance then parts from such as EBC would probably be better, but they cost more, even more than OEM parts. For my situation it is to keep costs down and assurance of good quality parts. I have done some digging online and called a few dealers. Japanese parts were recommended by far, and even PBR from Australia, but to stay away from China made products (same as your comments cssnms). For the peace of mind I am leaning more towards OEM parts. The cheapest found so far for OEM front pads are at Sewell and the cheapest for rotors at mylexusparts.com. I will try ebay too (thanks masboy)…and will call the Lexus North Miami dealer for total price discount. One other thing is the Sewell site recommends if you replace the front pads, to also get the Shim Kit and Fitting Kit. My Dealer didn’t mention this earlier – option or must do? Replacing the rotors?….so far there’s no pulsating (thanks cssnms) but the Dealer recommended it when the vehicle was just in for the 48km service. The local garage hasn’t seen the vehicle yet, it was just over the phone, his reason was the GX is heavy and this wears on the rotors. I am going to bring the GX in to the local garage in a couple of days for a look and also check if the shims and fit kit are needed. Yes definitely will stay away from the Midas or Budget Brakes. Thanks again for all the helpful advice. Will update this after the visit.

 

It sounds like you did your research, great! As for the shim kit, I would recommend it, it is inexpensive enough. Otherwise, you might have squealing after you install pads. Rears come with the shim kit, fronts do not. I had to go back and install the shim kit after the fact because of the squealing I encountered.

As for the rotors, your dealership is FOS, unless they took measurements of the rotors and shared those findings with you and what the acceptable tolerances are? I suspect they are trying to sell you new rotors unnecessarily, which is very disappointing to hear, although it wouldn't be the first time... Make sure whatever shop you take your truck to for a 2nd opinion is a shop YOU TRUST, or don't be surprised to hear the same thing. I would even go so far to say, call your SA at Lexus back and ask him for the measurements they took to support their recommendation to replace the rotors and ask him for the minimum allowable thickness. I bet you will catch him off guard.

Don't forget to call your local Toyota dealer for a price on pads and install as well.

 

There are 2 different brake pad kits available from Toyota:

04465-35290 that contains only brake pads

04465-AZ001-TM that contains the shim kit and grease in addition to the brake pads.

Brake pads are the same in both kits.

Most dealers will use 35290 kit while performing brake service and most will NOT give you an option of choosing AZ001-TM kit.

In real life, however, you can safely reuse your old shims as long as they were not damaged during dis-assembly.

IIRC the pads were $55 - $60 at the dealer.

There were several other threads here fairly recently about the brakes and rotors, and most members had their rotors last a LOT longer than 54K miles.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

I have a feeling the premature wearing of some of the previous posters are from sticking or seized calipers. I brought my truck in for a check on the brakes after having pulsating brake pedal and it was found to have 3 bad calipers. Both front and the rear passengers calipers were not working correctly. I have an aftermarket warranty(should have bought a lexus one) and the company sent a rep out because they found it hard to believe there were 3 calipers bad. They determined just the 2 front were bad and refused to pay for Lexus calipers($350 each) I had to pull it from the dealership and had a local shop do 2 new aftermarket calipers for $500 including labor. My point is I never knew there was a problem with my brakes let alone was driving around with both fron calipers faulty. Its been 6 months since the repairs and now I'm getting a pull to the right on hard braking- I'm thinking that means the left front caliper is acting up again.

 

Hey I am back. I was excited to find my OEM parts online and found for the brake pads thepartsbin.com and sewell.com were the cheapest. For the rotors, dealerdirectparts.com and partswebsite.com. Bringing the parts into Canada involved some extra taxes, but there was still a small savings and seemed worth it. However, going to our local garage I was surprised that they were not willing to take parts unless they placed the order themselves. They rambled about that they couldn’t trust a customer to order the parts in case they came in wrong or missed some parts. Really now?!! I called one other garage and they were apprehensive too. To let them order the parts it was turning out to be almost just as much as Lexus service. At this point it was becoming frustrating to say the least. We have been pretty busy these past few weeks and didn’t have time for all this bs. I called Lexus service and this time spoke to the service person who normally handles my appointments. We spoke about the cost and to my surprise they gave me a discount which I was satisfied with. From this ordeal having the good relationship helped. This time Lexus came through.