Brake And Wheel Bearing Problems

[stretch6-5]

I recently had some noise coming from the front brakes and a spongy brake pedal. with 27,000 miles on the tonka i figured maybe they were due for new brakes. 200$ brake job through the dealer, i drove home and the problem came back. now my fj has been at the dealer for a week and now i recieved a phone call i wasnt ready for!!!!! it comes down to being wheel bearings, an engineer came out from toyota and inspect them. now i find out that toyota will not cover the bearings due to as they say being abused by off roading.. 1800$ is the cost for repairs


a little history on the off roading, out of the 27k miles i would have to say there would only be about 200-250 miles off the payment. this including my 2 and 12 year old girls in the fj. so it wasnt anything extreme, just some family fun for for a day here and there.

the dealer is also scratching there heads on this one and has offered to take care of the price of the parts so now the price is down to 945$ (thanks cerritos toyota)

Im intrested to know if anyone else has had this problem or if they any ideas on how to fight toyota about this problem with the bearings.

any feed back would be helpfull. thanks

[pascualg805]

what kind of noise. I have had a squeeling in the right front wheel when i back the car up in the AM but ususally goes away once they are warmed up.

[stretch6-5]

pascualg805 previously said:

what kind of noise. I have had a squeeling in the right front wheel when i back the car up in the AM but ususally goes away once they are warmed up.

it was more like a scraping and little clicking sound that would just come and go anythime of the day.

[7red7]

I love how Toyota just loves to tout this truck as a go anywhere vehicle that is ready for off roading right out of the gate. Yet let one of us go in for something breaking and they deny the warranty due to it being abused by it been off road?????????

I'm sorry to hear about your rig. Good on the dealership though for trying to do something right and cover the parts for you.

Best of luck

[stretch6-5]

when picking up my fj saturday they informed me one of the reasons for the bearings was due to me going through water. I insisted on seeing my bearings, and upon review i noticed that there was no signs of grease. the mechanic had to destroy the hubs in order to get them off. now i fear there might be future problems with the axles. I did on the other hand get to take pictures of the old bearings to use in my defense though. will post pictures shortly. I love my fj but at the moment im not to pleased with engineer from toyota. from what i can see it was a bad set of bearings or a bad grease job to begin with. i guess i can tell were the metal shavings were from

[Hotrodguru]

I have 37,000 miles on my FJ now. I've had a 3" ToyTec lift on it since like 10,000 miles.

I was getting noise from the front as well and suspected it was a wheel bearing. I just got a call from the dealer that they're going to replace both front bearings and hubs as well as a precaution. I'm running Hankook 285's on there and I know they're way heavy tires. Wondering if that has something to do with that or maybe it was an alignment issue.

I too off-road my FJ quite a bit and it's really beat up. Missing front and rear bumper pieces, body damage and trail scratches along the whole side. Guess it comes down to the dealer and how well they take care of you. Toyota markets this vehicle as an off-road vehicle so they should honor things that maybe get wore out because of such. Not like I've hit the Rubicon every weekend. Hell these is no Rubicon in flat land Texas, haha .

[Chadd]

pascualg805 previously said:

what kind of noise. I have had a squeeling in the right front wheel when i back the car up in the AM but ususally goes away once they are warmed up.

The stock rotors suck. Mine are heat damaged and rusted badly and they truck is only 12 months old.

[SkyKing]

stretch6-5 previously said:

when picking up my fj saturday they informed me one of the reasons for the bearings was due to me going through water. I insisted on seeing my bearings, and upon review i noticed that there was no signs of grease. the mechanic had to destroy the hubs in order to get them off. now i fear there might be future problems with the axles. I did on the other hand get to take pictures of the old bearings to use in my defense though. will post pictures shortly. I love my fj but at the moment im not to pleased with engineer from toyota. from what i can see it was a bad set of bearings or a bad grease job to begin with. i guess i can tell were the metal shavings were from

This is NOT the first time I have heard of the "no grease" on the bearings on this forum. I am starting to think Toy might have forgotten to grease some of them. My Chev. Blazer has been half way up the doors in water, and it has 180,000 miles on it. Never had any pulley problems, and the last time I re-packed my bearings, they still looked newish, and still full of grease.
So I have to ask, what is up with this Toyota quality (this is my first, and last Toyota)?
Body rips in half, the pulleys can't get wet or they will fail, the book shows you can go in 27 inches of water, but it looks like that washes all the grease out of the bearings. And remember, the breathers are way lower than 27 inches as well, so it kills the drive train. The FJ is a real fun truck to drive, but don't get it wet...???!!!

If your dealer told you that the bearings failed because you put it in water, tell them to look on page 2 of the 2008 FJ catalog. It shows two FJ's in some good deep water and mud.
I still love my "problem free" FJ. It is only 1.5 years old, but I am already starting to look at what Jeep has to offer (can you say Hemi?). When I see that my body has torn, I will dump it for a new ORV. One that works!
And to think, I went the extra mile, and paid for a TRD...