Maintenance on Disc Brakes

The disc brake system on your car is a replaceable component of your braking system. Sooner or later the brake parts will have to be replaced. These systems are a key component of the safety features in your Honda Accord. Do not ignore this potential problem.

•   As you know the disc brake pads are pressed against the disc or rotor which causes friction and heat and slows the car down. While the disc brake pad may not physically touch the rotor as a layer of gas may be between them, the pads will tend to wear out and your brakes will start to fail. Pads come in different compositions designed for different purposes. A disc brake pad that stops a street car may not be effective on a race car. And a race car disc brake pad will be so hard that premature wear will occur if it's used on a street car.
•   How do you know when your disc brake pads should be replaced? Most disc brake pads come equipped with some method of alerting the driver when it's time to replace them. Some have a thin piece of soft metal that causes a brake to squeal when the pads need replacing. Sometimes the indicator is a soft metal tab embedded in the pad material that lights a warning light when the brake pad gets too thin.

•   Disc brake rotors must also periodically be replaced, but usually less often than the brake pads. While disc brake pads wear out faster, the disc surface is also being worn. The harder the pad, the faster the disc brake will wear out. A disc brake starts out at some particular thickness. Discs can also be damaged by warping, scarring and cracking and runing the brake system. Most of the time you can correct these problems with a brake lathe. This brake lathe takes off a thin amount of disc material from both sides of the disc. Every brake manufacturer has determined the minimum thickness for their discs. When this has been reached the disc is no longer safe to use, and it must be replaced. Too thin of a disc will warp and can cause other damage under hard braking.