I purchased a new 2010 Toyota Camry in August, 2009. About a month after I purchased the vehicle I noticed a high pitched squeek every morning when I depressed the brake pedal. The squeek disappears after about 2 minutes of driving and depressing the brake pedal. I have owned the car about 7 months now and this squeeky noise seems to be getting louder. I took the vehicle to 2 different dealers and they told me this is normal and due to condensation and oxide build up on the brakes as the car sits overnight. They also said they could not reproduce the noise and essentially did nothing. I don’t know of anyone having this problem and I never had this problem on previous cars. It is very disappointing to have a brand new car with brakes that squeek every morning and even after sitting idle in parking lots for several hours. Any ideas on the problem or how I can get Toyota to fix it? I already called the Toyota customer service center and all they told me to do was take it in to a dealer.
Well, the dealer is not wrong about the cause of the squeak. Brake rotors will build up a surface rust over the course of several hours. This will then produce various kinds of unpleasant (though technically harmless) noises. So there is likely nothing at all wrong with the brakes - in terms of their real function which is about making the car stop.
There are various means of controlling brake squeal. I think that you should go back to the dealer where you bought it and continue to annoy them. Try to find a time when it will be raining or be very humid. Leave the car with them overnight so that someone there can drive it first thing in the morning. This will confirm for them that there is an annoying squeal.
I have thesame problem and would be interested in knowing if you found a solution to your problems. Also did you use OEM brakes or ceramin after market products?
This could be caused by condensation, glazed brake pads, or even by the pad lining material. In some cases an issue like this is not a warrantable one.
The dealer is between a bit of a rock and hard place also. If they perform brake repairs over this minor issue and Toyota denies the claim this means the dealer eats the entire cost.
This is also exacerbated by Toyota’s recent problems with a huge number of Recalls. This astronomical Recall repair costs combined with less revenue due to lost sales, etc. has a carry-over angle also. This means that TMC is going to be trying to make some of it up somewhere else and debateable warranty claims is one area they may firm up on.
About all I can suggest is continue to push the issue and you MUST maintain a paper trail on this issue if there is any hope at all of trying to use the Lemon issue.
The customer service centers (all car makers, not just Toyota) have pretty much all adopted the same modus operandi; say nothing and palm it off on the dealers. Of course, some of that attitude is the fear of saying anything that could be used in a lawsuit so they’ve pretty much adopted a generic response to everything.