I just took my truck into Just Brakes (since it was close) to get my pads changed. What prompted me to do this you ask? The left front brake was squeaking intermittently. They got my wheels off and looked at them and found bigger problems. The rear drums are fine (thats why I took it in, i dont have the tools or know-how to do drum), but the front are messed up, Right off the bat the mechanic saw discoloration on my calipers suggesting overheating. Upon further inspection he found that my drivers side clipers are a little messed up and pinching the pads to the disc just a little bit. This is making a lot of heat and has warped the rotor. The passenger side isn't much better off. They suggested a caliper rebuild, new rotors, and new pads. While I am going to take the truck to several other places for estimates tomorrow (including the stealership to get their opinion), i'd like to know what yall think. Is it worth me doing all of this or should I use this opportunity to look into a Tundra brake system? How much would that cost/how difficult is it to do? I do NOT have an ABS system.
EDIT: according to the mechanic, the rotors are too thin to grind down flat this I need new ones. The price he quoted me for all that work is around $510 which would get me factory rotors. More if I want beefier rotors...

Also, not brake related, i now have TWO broken studs on my front passenger wheel. I know it's not terribly safe to be driving around like this but I need to find time to change them. How hard is it to do that?

Also, they found that the inner boot on my passenger side CV has a hole in it and has no fluid left in it. How extreme is this problem? How easy is it to fix? How expensive would it be if I took it somewhere?

Lots of problems but I appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

 

anybody?

 

The price for the brake job doesn't sound far off. It's probably about 50% parts and 50% labour.

To remove and rebuild both calipers, and to replace the rotors and the pads, you're probably looking at roughly 3 hours from the time they drive it in to the time they drive it out... if they do it right. That price probably doesn't include new caliper pistons (if you need any). When I rebuilt mine, 3 out of 8 of the pistons were pitted (the three that were seized). It cost me an additional $90 for all three pistons, but overall it was still way cheaper than buying two rebuilt calipers.

If you wanted to try this yourself, you'd probably save $200-$250 in labour.

For your wheel studs, I'd look at changing them soon... Five studs would be OK for a while. Four may be holding for now, but that would be beyond my comfort level... especially since you're running heavy 33" tires. If you don't have time to do them yourself, get the guy that's doing the rest of the work for you to do it. It's only a 10 minute job once the wheel and rotor are off, so realistically, he shouldn't charge you to do it at all if he's doing all the rest of the work for you. Studs are approx $4 apiece at the dealership, I think. We'd hate to see the title of your next post be "Parting out 2000 Taco. Truck rolled when wheel fell off."

For your CV axle, what's going to hurt you is the lack of grease in the joint. If you can't fix it right away, at least get a small tube of CV grease and squeeze some in the hole, then wrap duct tape around it to keep the grease in (of course this will only help if the hole is quite small. If it's torn bad, look at doing it right away.)

To replace the CV inner boot, you can get a kit with the inner boot, grease and clamps and replace only the inner one, or you can get a kit with both boots, grease and clamps and rebuild the whole CV axle. Personally, I would replace both boots, since the outer one is typically the weaker of the two. The kit with both boots will be approx $50. You can remove, rebuild, and re-install the CV axle in approx 3-4 hours if it's your first one. I've done three so far, and I'm now down to approx 2 hours for the whole process. If you don't want to rebuild it yourself, you're better off buying an aftermarket one at Autozone or something (I think they have lifetime warranties there?) because the labour cost alone will be higher than a new aftermarket one.

Good luck.