Honda Accord 2004 - Brakes & Discs

How long is a piece of string? How fast your pads wear depends upon your driving style and the types of road you drive down. I hardly put any wear on mine because I hardly need to use the brakes..mainly rural A roads with plenty of slowing down on engine braking.

The only way to judge the discs accurately is to measure their thickness with calipers and a micrometer and check it against manufacturers recommended tolerance.

Oh, and £675 is a rip off. Take it to any non francised garage for replacement discs/pads as its not really a complicated job.

My 96 Accord still has the original discs on at 120k. If your discs are really more than 75% worn then there's either something wrong with your brakes or something wrong with the way you use them! Pads is another matter of course.

Do you have a branch of Protyre near you?

have always been happy to do a brake check for me and they'vealways come in cheaper than anywhere else I know in the SW forbrakes (and exhausts for that matter). You could ring them for a quoteanyway.

Aside: I still haven't found anywhere other than Honda who are prepared to change the discs on my 96 Accord Wagon. The discs are the top-hat type where the disc is behind the wheel hub. Apparently the rather physical process of dismantling this usually results in the wheel bearing being destroyed and an unhappy customer with a bigger bill. There is an alternative method for these Accords

182k PDF)but most garages aren't interested in anything other than whacking it hardwith a slide hammer. I would hope that Honda resolved this issue by thetime your Accord came out! HTH, Al

That does sound a bit steep. They often need replacing around 20-25k though. However, it's usually only the rear discs that need doing.

Where are you located? If you're near the NE I will be able to help on prices :-)

The message from kev snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Kev Howell) contains these words:

As long as a piece of string. I can get 40k out of a set of pads without trying hard 'cos I don't often use the brakes. I know people in the same car who can't get 15k because they use them a lot.

Discs are very variable but don't seem to last as long these days because of changed pad compounds and heavier cars.

As for the cost - outrageous. Have a look at

Parts for the front appear to be under £100 a bit less for the rear - though I'm not sure exactly which model yours is. Don't assume that because they don't list one they don't do it - email them and they're very helpful.

Honda prices can be rather shocking it has to be said, I've had occasion to need parts for honda power equipment ie mowers and small generators and i seem to remember the price for the 10 kw3 cylinder diesel genset oil, oil filter and air filter kit was nearly £400.00 list! other expamples of honda pricing are a very cheap and nasty box type plug spanner listed at about 10.00 quid plus another 9 for the T bar handle! With this we are talking kit you'd see down the pound shop!

Dilbert

I've a feeling Honda have made changing discs rather less easy than most.

Don't know how different the current vintage Accord brakes are to my 1994 Prelude, but my brother changed the front discs and pads on the Prelude this weekend and it took him 1 1/2 hours tops.

Parts cost was about £80 from

. Only problem was that the pad springs in the fitting kit didn't fit, so had to reuse the old ones.