Toyota Rav 4 a brake gobbler!!!

We purchased a new Rav 4 in Feb 2019 from Toyota in Cape Town.

It has had two services according to the maintenance schedule .In dec 2020 it was on 27466 kms and was serviced by the above dealer.

We were very shocked to receive a call from the dealer who phoned to tell us that the brake pads and discs need to be replaced .The quote was forwarded to me . R11382!

We were we shocked for a number of reasons:

1)according to our previous experience of Toyota vehicle 27000 would be too soon to expect to replace brakes and discs. 2) the vehicle is driven by myself-I am a lady driver ,have been driving various vehicles for 37 years and I have never experienced this .Our last vehicle was a Toyota Fortuner which we had for 12 years and the first set of brakes were definitely only replaced after 70000kms. 3) We do not have a tow bar on the vehicle and have never used in any other way other than for normal usage. 4) had we been advised when purchasing the vehicle that this sort of cost would be occurring after less than 24 months use , in all likelihood we would have not purchased the vehicle. 5)the cost of the parts for this also appear to be exorbitant compared to similar brake and disc sets.

When we picked up the vehicle we spoke to the service advisor and discussed this ,I was particularly curious about his views on the “early” replacement .He initially mentioned driving style ,however further into the conversation he said that there are two Toyota model that use brakes heavily –that being the Rav 4 and I can’t recall the other ,but I think he said the Yaris.

We took the vehicle to an independent third party and he was as shocked as we were and also immediately said that this requires investigation by yourselves.

When shopping for a new vehicle four years ago we had the choice of many marques ,we did however choose Toyota due to our previous good experience with the Fortuner and the reputation of Toyota vehicles to be reliable and economical from a running point of view.

i sent an email to Toyota south africa in dec 2020 and other than an automated response nothing further was heard from them

We did eventually have the brakes replaced and on the advice of the dealer principal we have been having the brakes checked every 6 months-it is now just over a year later and today we had to replace the pads and have the discs skimmed .The vehicle is now on 53000 kms! I would like and answer from Toyota south africa explaining this and it would also be courteous of them to answer my email.