Changing my front brakes and rotors is a great idea...not

Reading about issues after the fact is making me cry but posts i have found are over a decade old so maye there is hope.

Bought a 2006 and the front end looks like it has not been taken care of in over a decade to include rotors that are flaking rust on the edges. Brake and rotor change is one of my easy got to weekend fixes so ordered slotted rotors and ceramic pads. Driver side went back together with no issues in 45 minutes. (Took time to take caliper cradle off white brushed and heat painted it to look pretty)

Took passenger side off and found prior owner completely rounded off one of the cradle bolts so I spent 3 hours running around town to track down a new bolt. When I got home the caliper piston was completely out of the caliper. Thought maybe one of the kids "went for a drive" while I was gone but after reading maybe the car pushed it out on its own since I left the key fob in the car while I was gone.

I cleaned up the mess and "rebuilt" the caliper just like I have always done with cars in the past. Primed the caliper put everything back together and did the old fashioned brake bleed procedure on passenger side.

The fluid reservoir never went below 3/4 full so I thought I would be fine but brake light is on now and brakes are spongy as hell.

Prius gods please tell me there is a fix other that towing it to the stealership.

I promise I will read every article here before I touch anything else on my 2006 lol

 

Do not have techstream but if it will save a $300 dealership bill I will do it

Will search info on it now

 

Update: made an appointment with the stealership to have them do the brake bleed process for Monday. The brakes were very spongy and felt just like every other car I had with air in the lines.

I had to replace my speed sensors also and got them from flea bay on Friday. Put them on and cleared the codes. Well when I cleared the codes the red brake lite turned off also so out of curiosity I tightened the seat belt and drove it about 100 yards down the street to get the brake bleed code to come back on but to my surprise the brakes were solid.

I rolled the dice and drove a total of 53 miles and it seems that I in fact did not have air in the line. I believe that when the caliper pushed out the piston the computer shut the system down and would not reset the system until the code got cleared.

I assumed that like with the master cylinder system after the air was out of the system the light would just shut off and I would be good to go but as i am finding out the computer needs the nut behind the wheel to tell it that the issue is fixed before it lets you drive with confidence.

What I learned:
1)dont assume anything on a Prius will act like the old gas guzzlers.
2) spend at least an hour educating yourself on any work you do on a prius, even if you have done the work on a gas engine car 100 times before
3) keep the key fob in the house when working on a Prius to insure it does not try to "help" you out
4) the members of priuschat have the answers to the questions you do not know you need to ask so use the search feature and then post your question to verify before you open your tool box.

Side note for $33 a year it looks like the app "Garage Pro" looks like it has the ability to get the computer to bleed the Prius brake system as well as run and clear the codes as well as interact with many other systems in the Prius. It also may be able to code new key fobs without doing the chicken dance. Not sure about this last yet but I need to get new fobs made (car only has 1 currently) will be ordering a new fob in the next week or so and will post if it does in fact work. (You do need a Bluetooth obd2 reader for this app)