My girlfriend has a 2000 LX Civic and it needs new brakes. When you drive it you can feel it pull to one side when you use the brakes and when she had her winter tires put on just recently they told her the front brakes need to be replaced.

I still need to look at them to determine if the discs can be lathed. I'd like to replace all the pads and get the drums and rotors turned. I don't know what pads to get though. I've bought the Akebono pads off tirerack.com for my subaru legacy(all wheel disc brakes)and for my metro and on both cars the pad or the brembo rotors I bought for both cars did not work very well. I followed the brake pad and rotor bed-in process on stoptech. But the brakes don't stop either car as well as the old worn brakes did. These brakes are very hard to even lock up on dry pavement.

Which brake pads and maybe even rotors should I get for her car?

 

pics of said girlfriend are needed to further diagnose this problem...

slap some autozone specials on there and call it a day

 

pics or ban

 

You are both immature.

Does anyone have any serious suggestions?

 

wrenchez chiming in......................
sound like you have a bad caliper on the front boodrow!! pads or rotors would not cause a vehicle to pull... if the rotors were warped than she or you weould get pedal and steering wheel pulsation as you apply the brakes... on the other hand if one of you calipers are sticking and one wheel brakes and slows and one doesn't than youll have a pull situation... usually if the car pulls to the left then check the right side caliper... and if it pulls to the right you would the left side....... as for pads and rotors... i dont know about you but i love my girlfriend and would not take the risk of some cheap *** pads falling apart and possibly hurting or killing her or someone else.... just get a top quality set of pads and rotors so youll both be happy!!! oh yah and check the guide pins too if theyre sticking in the caliper it can cause a lil pulling too!!! but i would probably just replace both front calipers .....

 

oh yeah i would recommend wagner thermo quiet pads and wagner rotors... not very wise to machine rotors... thinner metal heats up a lot quicker ... and overheated rotors lead to brake pedal fade... but ultimately its your decision bruh!!

 

X2
spoken like a true tech

 

Have the brakes been bled recently? Do that first. Then see how it feels. After that you can try new rotors and pads. If you buy from Tire Rack check the ratings. They rate their pads stopping ability, dust level, and noise. Sometimes better pads make a lot of dust and can be noisy. Consider the big European cars, you will see many of them driving around with filthy front wheels. Brembo blank rotors and Hawk HPS pads are a great setup. Then if after broken in properly they still feel weak make sure the MC is not leaking. If you hold the pedal down and it sinks your MC may be leaking. Then you can also look at calipers. They aren't very expensive at Majestic Honda.

 

Honda OEM pads will wear down the rotors the least and are going to produce the least dust and noise. OEM pads are not all that expensive when bought through Honda online OEM dealers. So-called long lasting pads will eat up the rotor.

If the rotors cannot be turned, I would buy OEM rotors as well.

 

sounds like it needs bled or your caliper is sticking. I would definatly try to bled em before getting a caliper all though if you need a caliper you'll need to bench bleed it and bled it on the car. I can't stand bleedin blakes and clutchs, generally a 2 person job unless you have some special way to hold the brake pedal then crack open the bleeders. But you still need to apply some pressure to the system for tyhe air to come out of the lines.

 

uh..... you bench bleed master cylinders not calipers... all you should have to do is swap then gravity bleed them... thats all!! the only time you really have to pedal bleed is when you let air in the system... if not swap the calipers open the bleeder screw and let gravity do its thang... just monitor the level in the resovoir and start furthest from the master cylinder first... and wagner thermo quiet pads aswell as wagner brake products MEET and EXCEED oem specs...

 

go to autozone napa and car parts store and just get some brakes if it a commuter car you dont need top of the line or perfomance brakes. get ceramic or semi ceramic pads and some stock replacment rotors dont even bother gettin the drums cut just clean them with 80 grit sand paper and youll be fine

 

excuse me mister... but did you read the very top post carefully??? the veh. is pulling!!!! and price does matter and so does brand... take a simple hamburger analogy mcdonalds double kangaroo burger for $1.58 and a ruby tuesday single fat *** burger for $7.00... which one is better??... cmon dood you get what you pay for in life sometimes it aint worth the heartache or troubles that come with substandard parts!! fact of the matter is you cannot do a good job with cheap parts!! i do this **** for a living and my reputation in which i put my food on the table matters A LOT!!! sure you can use cheap parts ... but they wear out quicker and are prone to catastrophic failure... im willing to take thge chance on plug wires,, thermostats and things of that nature... endagering the life of my customers or other people on the road is simply not worth saving 20 bucks!!!

 

I'm pretty sure I also read on stoptech that warped rotors are a myth. They said when people think the rotors are warped it's actually hard spots on the rotors that have been worn onto or into the rotor that causes pulsation due to differences in friction. They said they have never seen a warped rotor before and they don't believe rotors warp.

But anyways, I agree I don't want to put cheap pads and definately not cheap rotors on any car. I'm skeptical about both the brembo oem rotors and the akebono pads. I hear hawk makes good pads though.

Where do I get the wagner rotors and pads? And how do I find out if the caliper is sticking?

I've never heard of gravity bleeding. I've always had two people to bleed brakes. I just bought the Power Bleeder. Hopefully that will allow me to do it by myself a lot easier.

 

LMAO ROFL!!!!!!!!! warped rotors are NOT a myth.. if you do not torque the wheels to spec and have different pressures at different points than the rotors are going to warp!!!! think about this!! what happens to metal when it heats up??? it becomes soft... and if its attaching points are all different than where the attaching fastners are, the metal will bend slightly more than the other spots... herego you get lack of parallelism,, which in often than most are referred to as warped rotors

 

HAHAHAHHAA I guess everything you read on the internet is the truth too right?

If your car pulls right then the right caliper is sticking if it pulls left the left is sticking. The car is going to pull to whatever side the slower wheel is on.

Brembo makes good rotors. I have never heard of the pads you are talking about though. I would replace both front calipers both front flex brake hoses both front rotors and pads. That is just me...always do both sides at once...saves alot of headache in the future. I would go to auto zone or what ever your local auto parts store is and get what ever parts they sell....they will meet oem specs.

 

Check your calipers same as everyone said. I never have had a problem with Brembo blanks and hps and ebc green stuff pads. Just my two cents everything has been covered here already, and whoever said rotors dont warp, is just plain silly. Information is not right until you know for a fact that its true, do research before making silly posts like that.

 

kk for got to mention the problem of the car pullin the problem will be either seized sliding pins leak/damaged caliper

 

i would start with getting some OEM honda pads.

put them on and lube the slide pins.

if the pull goes away then great, if not, then you need to replace the calipers. i would do both.

 

I typed in warped rotors into google and it automatically came up with "warped rotors myth".

Here's the tech writeup on it from stoptech:

http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp...rakedisk.shtml

 

Read the tech bulletin I posted. I think you need to do some research. I'm going to believe the guys who make brakes for a living professionally. I think they know their stuff.

 

I wasnt going to post b/c most people already addressed your problem, but not that you have found all of the "stoptech quotes" why are you replying? If you didnt trust any information you find on this website why did you post here? Looks to me like a lost sheep read too much internet garbage! If you dont like the advice stop asking for it!

or just drop your car off at stoptech and they can fix it up for you!

 

I think you should get a tape recorder, call up the guys at stoptech and argue with them that what they have to say about brakes is all just internet garbage and then post up that audio file on this forum so we can all listen to it and see how it goes.