I was surprised to recently discover that the rear pads on my 31,000 mile Accord were worn out to the point that one of the wear sensors was making it's sound occassionally. The front pads still have at least
50% of their original thickness remaining.
I changed out all pads front and rear and turned the rotors due to chronic vibration on high speed braking.
Now both problems are fixed and the cost was not bad as I did the work myself, but this is still a surprise to me. None of my other vehicles have ever worn out the rear brakes first ... and no, I have not been driving with the parking brake on :).
On all four wheels the sliding caliper also seems to be of a marginal design as the pads on the piston side were much more heavily worn than those on the opposite side. Honda, like most makers these days, has gone for the cheapest possible caliper architecture.
something about this situation does not compute. pads don't wear unless they're being used or unless they're dragging. we have your word about the parking brake, so they have to be dragging in some other way. that /has/ to have a cause - it can only be:
brake cable incorrectly adjusted
brake cable not releasing correctly
parking brake mechanism jammed
caliper slider not free
piston not self adjusting correctly
piston jammed
it could also potentially be something defective with the proportioning valve, but that's a /very/ low probability.
based on age, it's unlikely that the caliper pistons are corroded or that the slider mechanisms are corroded or that the cables are corroded. that leaves something to do with prior maintenance. given that you've had to skim the disks already, a classic symptom of incorrect maintenance, i'd say some work was done, & whichever of the above it touched, it wasn't done right - maybe the pistons were not wound back in correctly causing self-adjust problems. hopefully, it'll be ok for now with the work you've done, but skimmed disks are at best a fudge and do not address the the real cause of the problem.
regarding brake vibration, pay very close attention to re-torquing the lug nuts. do /not/ use an impact wrench, regardless of whether "it /should/ be ok". use a 2-stage torque process, 1-3-2-4 - 1-3-2-4. the honda hubs are relatively light weight and elastically distort as the lugs are tightened. this is ok, /provided/ correct torque procedure is observed because the distortion ends up being even - it's what it's designed for. the problem is that this kind of system is /not/ abuse tolerant unlike some heavy old ford hub that weighs 3 times more. if /incorrect/ torque process is done, the hub distortion is uneven and the disk is consequently distorted also. provided it is not allowed to wear for an extended period in this condition, [and provided that the vehicle is not high mileage with worn ball joints] brake judder can be completely eliminated by simply re-torquing using the correct procedure.
Despite the fact that all is well now doesn't mean it won't happen again. You're fortunate to be able to do this work yourself. Since the car is under warranty, why not take it in and have the dealership go over the braking system to see if something is wrong?
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