German Engineering

[John105]

Yeah, I'd like to see the engineering behind why something like a caliper bolt should be single use? Its clamping two flat surfaces together... Shouldn't need to be TTY as there's no penalty to being slightly overtight? Headgaskets, pinch bolts, sure you can get a more consistent tension on TTY bolt, and overtight can be bad.
Are these TTY on the caliper? just to save a few grams going down a bolt size and shaving a few grams off the caliper and hub?

I won't lie--I looked at them, and even though I've purchased 4 fronts and 4 rears, I reused the ones on the vehicle, and nothing happened...

I've purchased from this seller so it's a legit dealer

Maybe there is thread locker from the pic

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1328151507...=2047675&ssuid=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[IndyIan]

Porsche also requires replacing caliper bolts, but interestingly theirs do not have thread locker on them, at least the OE's don't. I just did brakes on one of ours and replaced the bolts; figure Porsche has their reasons and do design a nice car and $40 added to the parts costs for a safety critical item is cheap insurance.

Are the caliper brackets aluminum on a steel hub? I could see using TTY bolts there, not to crush the aluminum? For cars that have performance as a design criteria and are don't need to be economically efficient, then sure, lets sacrifice ease and cost of servicing for some performance gains or a higher safety margin in track use.

 

[John105]

A lot of manufacturers require replacement of the caliper mounting bolts when servicing brakes. There is a long list of “one time use” fasteners for every car model.

When the new car dealer who sold me my used car (Buick GMC) did the front brakes with OE parts as part of the purchase, I asked for the old parts back. To put it in perspective, the first pass was we'll resurface the rotors (I could see the hats were orange so cheap aftermarket) and install new pads, to which I replied I'd like everything done with OE. They went back to used sales, and came back that's fine. Here is where I learned caliper bolts were part of the job--the service mgr. said Lexus told us we needed caliper bolts and joked they weren't cheap, since I was not going to see any itemization.

Everything was returned and I could see they got the parts from Mt Kisco NY, a nearby Lexus dealership. The wear sensor costs a fortune, $164.70 list for OE, when a BMW 335i OEM is $15.70, OE $29.06. Imagine the Japanese part is 5.7X the cost of a German equivalent.

edit Knowing what I know about Lexus dealerships, i.e. free multipoint said I needed $6,700 of work in 2016, of which none has been done to date, none needed per a Japanese indie, I would never take my car to one. 7 years and almost 60k miles later, all is well.

I'd bet dollars to donuts on a dealer brake job, those calipers bolts are included in the price, but installed 50% of the time. It's well known they only do 7/8 spark plugs on my car, as mentioned on the forum...

Hopefullly rich people ask for old parts back and that everyone has some standards (don't return parts from another job)

 

[John105]

Porsche also requires replacing caliper bolts, but interestingly theirs do not have thread locker on them, at least the OE's don't. I just did brakes on one of ours and replaced the bolts; figure Porsche has their reasons and do design a nice car and $40 added to the parts costs for a safety critical item is cheap insurance.

Many moons ago I learned the hard way, about what happens when one uses a screwdriver, to compress pistons on Porsche calipers.

Decided to look it up, and no longer available. But it was $900 at a time when a lift ticket at Killington was $40. The reason that was a ton of money is you can get a caliper today for that.

 

[CharBaby]

How about my flagship toyota saying per factory to replace all caliper bolts when doing brakes? They're like $10-$15 each. Last I checked the car has 4 calipers and each takes 2 bolts. That's pretty dumb, isn't it? I think picking on Germans is simply stereotypical. Some parts are multiples cheaper for a 7 series BMW than they are for an entry level Lexus.

Could you even imagine, a person having brakes done at a Lexus dealer? They'd have to be wealthy. It would be comical to know what is charged for front brakes. $60 alone in bolts, and another $120 in wear sensors. Almost $200 and haven't even gotten to anything of substance yet lol

I’ve never replaced caliper bolts on any vehicle including our LEXUS that we owned for 15 years and several brakes, hardware & rotor replacements.