Are my rotors as bad as the dealership says?

Yes, your dealer is trying to fund his next vacation. The only corrosion that should concern you are the rotor surfaces (cleaned by periodically switching to neutral at ~ 30 MPH and lightly applying the brakes. Repeat until the brakes operate quietly and smoothly) and the caliper slide pins (if they stick, the inner and outer pads will wear unevenly. Get them lubricated once every few years).

JeffD

 

Get 2nd opinion. The brakes can be measured. New is 10MM...Any less than 5mm should prob be replaced.

$500 is about $200 too high imo.

The rotors can also be measured.

 

they look like brand new! how many miles on them?

if original, it's worth having a professional look and measure.

 

That would be making far too much of a production of it. All it takes is a couple normal stops on a residential street, say 20 to 30 mph, just like your normal approach to a stop sign, but in neutral. Not something your passenger would ever notice unless watching you shift.

No big production needed. It just becomes second nature, any time you drive the Prius away from a place it's been damp-parked, if you notice a bit of scraping noise or extra grabbiness from the brakes, you just do that at the next couple stop signs without really thinking about it, all fixed.

The rotor pictures look fine to me, though the real criteria for replacement are loss of thickness or warpage, neither of which I can judge from a pic.

-Chap

 

A common trick is to sell rotors with a brake change since they get a markup for the rotors + can double bill for the labor. Basically it take no more labor add on installing new rotors but they bill you as if you were only installing rotors.

 

Anybody got the second gen specs. These are third gen specs, might be similar

New/min thickness: 25.0/22.0 (mm)
Max runout: 0.05 (mm)



DIY check of both values is failr easy, you just need to remove a wheel, and have a dial indicator (with magnetic base) and a 0-25 mm micrometer.

Still, I suspect nothing is wrong with the rotors, per the other responders.

 

Tell them your opinion of them just went down the drain. Tell them you'd like to do business with someone that is not a con artist, then find another dealer. The new rotors would look like that in a week anyway. Come to think of it, you'd could probably find a new car on their lot that looks just like that or worse if it sat for more than a day or 2.

 

Before you completely burn your bridges, check 'em yourself, or get an independent professional check. They could, for example, look great but be down to minimum thickness.

Who knows. As long you're not empowered, don't "knowledge up" yourself, you're at their mercy.