4th Gen Highlander V6 REAR Brake Service Mode and some tips

I just swapped over to my summer wheels and since I'm at about 35K km now and figured it's about time to do brake cleaning, re-greasing and inspection. I typically do this every 1-2 years. This post is more for tips and observations, there's plenty of tutorials out there for those who've never DIY brakes.

If you're changing your REAR BRAKE PADS you have to put the Electronic Parking Brake Actuator into Service Mode. This allows you to compress the rear caliper pistons. My pads had a lot of meat left but I did this step anyway since this was the first brake service.

To enter SERVICE MODE, jack up the car and take off your rear wheels, then do following procedure:

To begin your Parking Brake must be disengaged. If it's engaged, release it with the parking brake switch on the center console and then turn the car completely off.

With foot OFF brake pedal, hit Start Button 2 times. Car will be in Run position without starting the engine.

Within 8 seconds, with foot ON brake pedal, PULL UP Parking Brake Switch 3 times ... then ... PUSH DOWN Switch 3 times. Parking light indicator on dash will now rapidly blink.

Next, with foot OFF brake pedal, PUSH and HOLD DOWN Parking Brake Switch for 5 seconds. You will hear the EPB Actuator motor work for several seconds. When it's done you are now successfully in SERVICE MODE. Parking light indicator on dash will now slowly blink.

Now turn off the car and complete the brake job.

To RE-ACTIVATE the Electronic Parking Brake hit the Start Button 2 times, with foot OFF brake pedal, PULL and HOLD UP Parking Brake Switch for 5 seconds. You will hear the EPB Actuator motor work for several seconds. When it's done you've successfully exited SERVICE MODE.

To remove the grey Electronic Parking Brake connector, push down on the square tab in the middle while pulling the sides and it'll come straight out. Don't pull on the black connector. There was some crap in there which I cleaned it out with MAF Sensor cleaner, any electronics cleaner will do.

The EPB Assembly makes accessing the top bolt a little more difficult.

The outer bolt screw is a 14mm, the slide pin bolt is 17mm.
You won't be able to get an impact gun or right angle impact in there. I tried with a swivel and wouldn't fit.
I used a short 14mm socket on the outer screw. A long box wrench would also work nicely and provide adequate torque but I only have stubbies.
I used Knipex adjustable gripping pliers for the slide bolt since I don't have a slim 17mm wrench. A standard 17mm wrench is too wide. The Knipex pliers is their 7inch model and fits perfectly in there.

The 2 slide pins are different. The top pin has a plastic bushing while the lower pin doesn't. (I believe this is opposite on the front calipers, will confirm later)

The bottom pin on both rears were very tight coming out. Top pins came out smooth. Cleaned the pins and re-greased and all are sliding nice and smooth now. Brake pads had even wear so no issues there.

For slide bolts and boots I use Super Lube Silicone Brake Grease with PTFE

Lubricating the brake pad guides on the caliper bracket and caliper ears I use Permatex Ceramic Extreme Brake Grease (purple stuff). Toyota doesn't grease these parts from factory so there's a little corrosion buildup on them. I just cleaned them with a little brass brush and brake cleaner.

Replacing and bleeding the brake fluid was straight forward on my V6 model.

Bleeder screw is 8mm. I used 1 qt of fluid for both rears.
On the HYBRID model there's a special bleeding procedure.