Front brake job on my 2012 Camry

I will be doing a front brake job on my 2012 Camry soon, waiting for a cool day.

Anyone have an opinion on Wagner Thermoquiet Pads?

I wish I had had the sense to remove the Phillips screws securing the rotors when the car was new, doubtful I will get them out now. Usually the impact driver just chews them up and I have to drill them out.

No screws to remove, Toyota stopped using screws to hold the rotors years ago.

@“oldtimer 11”

I’ll tell you guys my opinion . . . again

I think the term “Thermoquiet” is a cruel joke :angry:

I’ve never had so many noise problems, versus other brake pads. And my sample size is huge, as you know

I highly recommend biting the bullet and getting pads from the Toyota dealer. Get the hardware kit too, while you’re at it. I’m talking the shims, BTW

Be forewarned, if you get thermoquiet and complain about noise later on, I will definitely say “I told you so”

And if you get thermoquiet and don’t have noise, I’m glad for you

But you HAVE been warned :warning:

And I did advise against thermoquiet

Now I’m sure many of the others will say I must be doing a bad brake job or something to that effect. Or maybe somebody will say I must have gotten a bad batch. I can see that happening once, but not every single time

I have asked the parts personnel to stop stocking thermoquiet :trollface:

hank you for your informed opinion.

This is what you need to break those screws loose next time you encounter them.

I’ve never damaged and screw and have always had great luck with this , as long as you have the right bit .

Yosemite

10-12 years ago I began using Thermoquiet on almost all of the cars that came in the shop. They didn’t dust up the wheels, they lasted well, they were quiet, and they had a good pedal feel. Then a few years ago I started having noise complaints about our brake jobs. We hadn’t changed anything we were doing, but switching away from Thermoquiet solved the noise problem.

I still used them on my personal cars because of the good wear and feel and no brake dust, but for customer’s cars I switched brands.

In my view you can’t get better advice anywhere than what you just got here. That’s why I still read these posts, even though some of them do test my patience.

Brake squeal, especially in the final few feet coming to a complete stop can be a real pain to eliminate even with OE pads. I had a hard time selling OE pads due to the price and when customers were given some price options they usually chose a less pricy part. I stocked Thermoquiet and FCI pads which were significantly cheaper than all major brand semi metallic pads. The FCIs became the most commonly chosen brand and complaints were as rare for them as they were for the NAPA parts.

Same experience with the Thermoquiet on two different vehicles. Always fighting a squeal issue. Switched to Duralast gold awhile back and never an issue with those on any of my vehicles. They also come with a new shim kit almost identical to the OEM. Scrimping on the shim kit is a recipe for squeals IMHO. I priced the OEM shims once and at that time, they were insanely priced. Maybe it has changed but I never looked back…

Yosemite- I have that exact tool but our salt bonds the screws so tightly in place that the bit just keeps widening the softer Phillios screw slots to the left until I am left with a conical divot. Then out comes the drill.

@oldtimer 11
Why in the world would Toyota use a Phillips head screw, I wonder?
My GM cars (the past decade and more) use a torx bit tool on a socket head screw to hold brake rotors. The tool locks right in and the factory screws release (unscrew) with a crisp “snap!” after a hundred thousand miles in the rust belt.

Then when I replace the brake pads I am always glad they’ve got the stainless steel slide covers on the carrier rails. Boy, for all the flak GM cars take, they come up with good ideas every once in a while. I don’t have brake problems.

I wish my old Dodge Caravan had the S.S. covers, but fortunately it’s never driven in winter, it hibernates.
CSA

I seem to recall that Honda also used a Philips screw. It was a common practice for some manufacturers

I’ve had good luck with that tool except for a few, where the screws were buggered up from someone before.

I believe those screws were only put on in the assembly line to keep the rotors on the hubs during assembly.
I suppose they didn’t want one falling off and landing on a employees foot.
But then they could keep records!
“line 7 reporting…employee 1234 has passed the lung capacity test”.

I never put the screws back on. I’m saving them to cash in for my retirement.

Yosemite

@Yosemite

Actually, AFAIK those screws are supposed to be reinstalled . . . but there will be no ill effects, if you choose not to do so.

I can’t recall ever reading a factory service manual and they told you to discard them.

And I think they would say to discard them, if that’s what you’re supposed to do. After all, GM likes to instruct you to remove a component and immediately discard the gasket or self-locking nut. And later on, during the reinstallation instructions, it tells you to use a NEW gasket or self-locking nut. I think they actually do use bold letters for the word “new”

Tinnerman nuts, on the other hand, “were only put on in the assembly line to keep the rotors on the hubs during assembly”

Tinnerman nuts ? Is that the proper name of those funky washer like things that I broke to get off ?

yup

Yes, my Toyota uses those stanless liners on the fixtures too, but there is the rust belt and there is the Buffalo area. At 16000 miles and a year and a half old ,my rear brakes were completely bound up from rust, the salt had gotten under those clips and the rust swelled under them locking the outer pad in place completely wearing it out.

“Yes, my Toyota uses those stanless liners on the fixtures too, but there is the rust belt and there is the Buffalo area.”

Believe me, we have salt where I live. Cars and roads are white with salt all winter.

I live on a cul-de-sac and many times in the winter I’ve had to shovel up piles of road salt and haul it off the road. Since the large highway plow trucks can’t do anything but bury my driveway end with snow when they turn around I have to snow blow the cul-de-sac end before the trucks arrive. Salt and snow blowers don’t mix. I need to throe snow 30 feet and wet snow won’t cut it, not to mention rusting out a snow blower. In recent years I’ve managed to convince the local county plow drivers to apply no salt on the road end.

The qualities of the steel used on brake components and their design can make a big difference. I have worked on some cars where I find it unbelievable that the brake components are so badly rusted.
CSA

“Half an inch of snow followed by an inch of salt!” @“common sense answer”

My experience is the similar to db’s. Push nuts used as temporary holding during assembly.

The screws they usually instructed to keep because they also had a tapped set of holes 90 deg out that acted as jack screws to push the rotor off the hub. You stored them using the through holes in the rotor and tapped holes in the hub. Unfortunately, my experience using those jack screws was terrible. Usually, they stripped out long before the rotor came loose. Maybe they worked in Arizona but not in Wisconsin with 4-5 months of salt washes…