Major Mistake

benjamming · Oct 1, 2009

Originally Posted By: JakeR22
Originally Posted By: benjamming
labman,

If the rear brakes do so little stopping, why do the rear brakes wear out ~ 10k miles earlier that my front brakes. '02 Accord with 4-wheel disc?

Defective or incorrectly engineered system.

Originally Posted By: labman
+1

This is the norm on 6th generation Accords. Replacement aftermarket (Akebono) pads do the same thing.

Why would you think that it is bad engineering for a brake system to wear the rear pads first?

Vaca · Oct 1, 2009

Originally Posted By: mpvue
every rear disc brake I've ever worked on has been a screw-in piston; had you ever done rear brakes before?

I'm pretty sure the rear calipers on my camry and on my lexus are just press in types, like the typical front calipers. They have mini drums inside the rear rotors that act as the parking brake. I beleive other brands (like Hond for instance) use screw in calipers since they use the calipers and rotors for the parking brake.

artificialist · Oct 1, 2009

My dad's 2007 Pontiac G6 only got 25,000 miles from the rear factory pads, and 30,000 from NAPA Adaptive One pads. It uses screw in caliper pistons.

My dad used to have a 1997 Lexus ES300 and he got 60,000 on the rear pads and 90,000 from the front pads. The ES300 used press-in caliper pistons and a miniture brake drum inside the rotor.

JakeR22 · Oct 1, 2009

Originally Posted By: benjamming
Originally Posted By: JakeR22
Originally Posted By: benjamming
labman,

If the rear brakes do so little stopping, why do the rear brakes wear out ~ 10k miles earlier that my front brakes. '02 Accord with 4-wheel disc?

Defective or incorrectly engineered system.

Originally Posted By: labman
+1

This is the norm on 6th generation Accords. Replacement aftermarket (Akebono) pads do the same thing.

Why would you think that it is bad engineering for a brake system to wear the rear pads first?

Well, if they do they do.

To me, front brakes do 75-85% of brakeing, so common sense say they wear out first. Like 99% of the vehicles on the road.

JakeR22 · Oct 1, 2009

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: JakeR22
Originally Posted By: benjamming
labman,
If the rear brakes do so little stopping, why do the rear brakes wear out ~ 10k miles earlier that my front brakes. '02 Accord with 4-wheel disc?

Defective or incorrectly engineered system.

Another person with no real world experience at all!

How about stability control? Doubt that Honda has it, but on two of my nicer rides the rear brakes ALWAYS wear out first. It's due to the stability control pulsing them if you drive aggressively.

Man, you guys need to go back to school on your brake theory.

What Honda? I belive the poster has a Mazda 3.

How are you driving these cars so "aggressively" that your rear brakes need to be applied?

I wonder how many high end supercars have that great stability control your cars do? Rear biased brakes in an aggresive situation will put that car in a spin before you know it. Good luck with that system. It must be for "non" drivers.

bdcardinal · Oct 1, 2009

btw we replace rear pads and rotors 3-4 times as often on Mazda 3's of all versions and driving styles.

chrome · Oct 1, 2009

The late model Honda Accords (6th, 7th and 8th gen) wear out the rear pads earlier than front pads, it's commonly reported amongst the community/forums.

This has been traced to the EBD (Electronic Brake Force) system which directs more hydraulic pressure to the rear brakes depending on load, in contrast to a fixed proportioning valve on other cars. The advantages of EBD in this case is increased braking stability with less nose diving, as it makes the rear brakes do more work rather than depend almost entirely on the front brakes.

PT1 · Oct 2, 2009

Originally Posted By: artificialist

My dad used to have a 1997 Lexus ES300 and he got 60,000 on the rear pads and 90,000 from the front pads. The ES300 used press-in caliper pistons and a miniture brake drum inside the rotor.

We have been getting at least 60k on our Lexus factory pads as well. This last job on the ES350 I just did was early because I didn't want to do a Winter brake reline. (brrrrr) The pads could have gone to 70k no sweat. So I used the toyota factory pads as I have a 20% off coupon from the dealer. The whole job was $80. Very easy to do. I cleaned the rotors with emery cloth and flushed with 2 cans of synpower and bedded them in with my 30x35 method and they are as good as new.

SteveSRT8 · Oct 2, 2009

What Honda? I belive the poster has a Mazda 3.
How are you driving these cars so "aggressively" that your rear brakes need to be applied?
I wonder how many high end supercars have that great stability control your cars do? Rear biased brakes in an aggresive situation will put that car in a spin before you know it. Good luck with that system. It must be for "non" drivers. [/quote]

Ha ha. That's so misinformed it's almost funny.

Come into the new millenium, grasshopper. You have much to learn. Almost all cars these days use at least an EBD system that biases the brakes electronically/actively based on a variety of parameters. It's common knowledge this actually works the rear more, with BETTER control. Doh!

Most ESP programming uses the rear brakes to equalize wheel speeds during aggressive driving. And all brakes to control yaw. Doh!

(Pssst, listen more, talk less!)

JakeR22 · Oct 2, 2009

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
What Honda? I belive the poster has a Mazda 3.
How are you driving these cars so "aggressively" that your rear brakes need to be applied?
I wonder how many high end supercars have that great stability control your cars do? Rear biased brakes in an aggresive situation will put that car in a spin before you know it. Good luck with that system. It must be for "non" drivers.

Ha ha. That's so misinformed it's almost funny.

Come into the new millenium, grasshopper. You have much to learn. Almost all cars these days use at least an EBD system that biases the brakes electronically/actively based on a variety of parameters. It's common knowledge this actually works the rear more, with BETTER control. Doh!

Most ESP programming uses the rear brakes to equalize wheel speeds during aggressive driving. And all brakes to control yaw. Doh!

(Pssst, listen more, talk less!) [/quote]

You're my Hero.

daves87rs · Oct 2, 2009

Gotta learn somehow. I take the good with the bad....

PandaBear · Oct 2, 2009

Not as bad as my major mistake. I opened the radiator cap after a highway run (with a towel) hot, and pour room temp coolant into the overheating car hot. It probably warped the head and caused HG leak.

Maybe it is not the case, maybe the head was warp and caused the overheat, but I still feel bad and in the end it cost me 1k to rebuild the head and the HG.

KrisZ · Oct 2, 2009

If so many cars have the rear pads go before fronts, then how can it be a poor engineering problem?

I think most people here are used to the disk/drum configurations, and on those set-ups the rear shoes lasted a really long time while front pads took all the braking abuse.

Drums cannot be modulated like disks, they lock up quickly, so the do very little work during braking, but it's not exactly good for the front to do all the work, the car will not be balanced during hard braking.

The use of disk brakes in the rear allows for more modulation without lock up, therefore engineers are taking advantage of this. Just like AWD helps with acceleration, as all 4 wheels help the car accelerate, 4 wheel braking does the same for stopping. The trade off is shorter pad life, not a big deal in my books.

Coincidently, my Mazda 3 has by far the best brakes of any car I owned (I'm talking small to mid size family cars, not sport cars), the modulation is just fantastic, just when you think you are braking hard already, you can still apply more force, until you loose grip of course. Other cars, especially my Accord with drums on the rear, when you were braking hard and pushed the brake pedal further you did not notice much difference, the system was bled and fluid was fresh BTW, you had to slam to lock the wheels.

Poor engineering my [censored], especially if it involves far better braking performance.

fdcg27 · Oct 4, 2009

I have to admire your courage and honesty in sharing your mistake with all of us.
Your report of your misfortune will undoubtedly save someone else here from making the very same mistake.
All of us from time to time screw a job up.
One of my favorites is the day I decided to do a quick tune up and valve adjustment on our '76 Civic.
First, I dropped the points screw into the distributor, so I ended up having to R&R it.
Then, when replacing the valve cover, I decided that one of the bolts should be just a little tighter, which turned out to be tight enough to break the stud onto which the bolt was threaded.
Then, there was the time that I adjusted the fuel pump on my '76 MGB, and increased preasure to the point that enough unburned fuel got into the exhaust to literally blow apart the catalytic converter.
You have no idea how difficult it is to get the darn thing off, either.
Moral of the story is that we all make mistakes.
The measure of the man is his ability to own up to his mistakes and to learn from them.

The Critic · Oct 4, 2009

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Not as bad as my major mistake. I opened the radiator cap after a highway run (with a towel) hot, and pour room temp coolant into the overheating car hot. It probably warped the head and caused HG leak.

Maybe it is not the case, maybe the head was warp and caused the overheat, but I still feel bad and in the end it cost me 1k to rebuild the head and the HG.

I do that all the time and haven't blown a headgasket. Maybe I just jinxed myself.

artificialist · Oct 5, 2009

Originally Posted By: The Critic
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Not as bad as my major mistake. I opened the radiator cap after a highway run (with a towel) hot, and pour room temp coolant into the overheating car hot. It probably warped the head and caused HG leak.

Maybe it is not the case, maybe the head was warp and caused the overheat, but I still feel bad and in the end it cost me 1k to rebuild the head and the HG.

I do that all the time and haven't blown a headgasket. Maybe I just jinxed myself.

Maybe it depends on the engine design as much as it depends on the coolant temperature.

Jim 5 · Oct 6, 2009

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: mpvue
every rear disc brake I've ever worked on has been a screw-in piston; had you ever done rear brakes before?

That was helpful.

Have you worked on very many vehicles?

I've got 3 in the driveway this instant with rear calipers that do NOT screw back in.

The last 4 vehicles I did rear brakes on.
- Acura 3.2TL - not screwed in
- 04 Chev Avalanche - not screwed in
- 01 Jetta- not screwed in
- 02 BMW 330ci - not screwed in

Just sayin'

KrisZ · Oct 6, 2009

Originally Posted By: Jim 5
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: mpvue
every rear disc brake I've ever worked on has been a screw-in piston; had you ever done rear brakes before?

That was helpful.

Have you worked on very many vehicles?

I've got 3 in the driveway this instant with rear calipers that do NOT screw back in.

The last 4 vehicles I did rear brakes on.
- Acura 3.2TL - not screwed in
- 04 Chev Avalanche - not screwed in
- 01 Jetta- not screwed in
- 02 BMW 330ci - not screwed in

Just sayin'

My FILs 00 Jetta TDI has screwed in rear calipers, would they change to small drum parking brake for 01? Otherwise how is the parking brake activated?

Jim 5 · Oct 6, 2009

Don't know, maybe it was a '99. It was some time ago.

artificialist · Oct 6, 2009

Originally Posted By: KrisZ
Originally Posted By: Jim 5
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: mpvue
every rear disc brake I've ever worked on has been a screw-in piston; had you ever done rear brakes before?

That was helpful.

Have you worked on very many vehicles?

I've got 3 in the driveway this instant with rear calipers that do NOT screw back in.

The last 4 vehicles I did rear brakes on.
- Acura 3.2TL - not screwed in
- 04 Chev Avalanche - not screwed in
- 01 Jetta- not screwed in
- 02 BMW 330ci - not screwed in

Just sayin'

My FILs 00 Jetta TDI has screwed in rear calipers, would they change to small drum parking brake for 01? Otherwise how is the parking brake activated?

There is a lever in the back of the caliper that gets pulled. it twists the screw in caliper piston and then applied forde to the pad.

Major Mistake

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