[Advice] Complaint against dealer -brake rotor rust vs pad transfer.
 

I want to ask you guys/gals for advice & your opinion on current issue before decided to move forward with a complaint against a SoCal dealership :mad0260:

2014 FRS had rod bearing failure @ 80k. SoCal dealership got new short block & cam cover covered under CPO warranty (the short block looks dirty, same amount of dirt as heads & transmission). They worked on car for more than 1 month, I picked up car, smoke coming from hood.Took car back in, dealer found & resealed front cam cover in 7 days period.

Went to pick up car, drove it 3 blocks, smoke coming from hood again & vibration when braking (that wasn't there when I dropped off car). Made a u-turn, they stated "residue" oil burning. I think it's new oil that dripped from leak bc they ran the car for an hour, all residual should be gone? I inspected rotors, looks like pad transfer on all 4 rotors (I'm not expert, wasn't there before), dealer claims rust from semi-metallic pads (I have TRD ceramics on). Service manager said it wasn't their issue, that I would have to pay for resurfacing, Dealer blames brake vibration is from not resurfacing when pads were changed 5 mins prior. Vibration & imprint wasn't there when car was dropped off.

Are the picture below rust from the brake pads that can occur during a 7 day period in SoCal (warm weather, no rain) or from something else? Also, does the short block like a BRAND NEW (photo taken right after picking up car, looks dirty); the serial number #203438N is not that much away from stock photo #203480N on Toyota.com



What do you think? Is a complaint warranted?

I can understand your general frustration with your car.

However, the imprint of the pad on the rotor isn't a big deal. It should go away after a few long periods of braking.


humfrz

It's not so much about the imprint . It's more of the car & steering vibration from it

OK, let's see if I have this straight. You said:

"Dealer blames brake vibration is from not resurfacing when pads were changed 5 mins prior."

So, did the dealer change the pads? If so, did they "bed in" the new pads?

If the dealer replaced the pads, did they recommend that the rotors be turned/replaced at that time?


humfrz

go out and do some hard stops. There is not much the dealer could have done changing the engine to cause break issues.



Looks like messy Marvin put your engine in. give it a good cleaning and keep an eye on it.

Does the look like rust.. yes or no?

Were the pads changed by the dealer? Your post says 5 minutes prior.


If they were not changed by the dealer, go out, accelerate to 50-60 mph, brake to 20-30. Repeat 6-7 times, or until the pulsing goes away.

Lie others have said, your brake don't need resurfacing. It's probably normal since the car was not used for a couples of weeks.
Just do a bed-in (couples of hard brakes until the brakes gets hot). You should always do this when you change pads.
Google "brake bed-in", for the correct procedure. You need to cool the brake after doing this, before parking the car.

1) most dealers do a quick machine wash before returning the car to you, so if the car sat around for more than 15 minutes after a wash the rust would be normal. that's what my brakes look like if I washed my car in my driveway and parked it without really driving it...

2) every block has a serial number, that's all you need to verify if the block is new or not. if you're so paranoid about it, write the serial number down and call Toyota corporate.

Brakes and new/old block aside; they took a MONTH to rebuild the motor and get it back to you? What did you do in the meantime?

I'd be on the phone with Corporate and see what happens there.

Please answer my questions first.


humfrz

honestly, it just sounds like you're out to get them.

No, that is not rust.
Rust is orange.

Clearly you don't know much about rust.