I am the owner of a 96 Accord. My Honda dealer does all of the major repairs and now I am having a brake/rotor problem.

At 166,891 miles, the original front brakes were replaced.
At 183,297 miles, the original front rotors were replaced due to a pulsating brake pedal (rotors could not be resurfaced due to high spots).
At 189,650 miles, the brake pedal is pulsating again and was told by the dealer to bring it in for resurfacing.

I have never had any issues with the brake pedal pulsating until the front brakes were replaced. Why do the new rotors have to be resurfaced at 6,000 miles? My original rotors were NEVER resurfaced. Why is this happening now?

Has anyone else had any problems with their rotors? Please let me know. Thank you.

 

If aftermarket rotors were used it wouldn't surprise me if they were warped. I've never had any issues running genuine Honda rotors, but I've seen lots of cheap aftermarket units warp.

If it wasn't for the rotors being a captive design that makes them a pain in the *** to replace I'd say to just replace them again. As it is see what happens with a resurfacing.

 

They are not aftermarket rotors. Genuine Honda rotors installed at the dealer.

 

Honda warrants all of their parts for atleast 1 year. If the rotors are at fault, they should be replacing them free of charge.

 

The new pads are most likely not being bedded in correctly. When they are not bedded in, or completely bedded in, the pedal may pulse.

Three things happen when the pads are bedded in;

• The pads are heated to burn off any excess resigns from manufacturing.
• The mechanical matching of the pad to rotor surface for a more complete rotor to pad interface.
• The pad material will be transferred to the rotor for bedding, which increases stopping power.

If the pads are not being bedded into the new rotors correctly you will have an uneven transfer of material to the rotor. This will cause differences in friction on the rotor surface, this uneven transfer of material most likely is what you are feeling. However, if this is not corrected by proper brake pad break-in this buildup will become worse. At the points where there is a transfer of material it will become a hot spot, if it becomes hot enough it will change the composition of the cast iron rotor to what is called cementite. It becomes a hard spot that cannot be corrected by resurfacing the rotors, they will have to be replaced.

You can try to correct this yourself before you bring the car back to the mechanic.

Find a freeway/highway that will allow a 65-60MPH speed.
Go there when there is no traffic preferably, late night or midday.
What needs to be done is the rotors/pads need to be heated up enough to bed in the new pad material onto the rotors.
From ~65-60MPH slow the car down to 10-5MPH, do not stop during this procedure!
Accelerate away and repeat for a total of 10 times.
Do not let the brakes cool down, nor stop during this procedure.
Slow down as though you were planning to stop, like on an offramp. But do not brake so hard as to cause wheel lockup or ABS to activate.
The pulsing may become a bit more severe initially but the pulsing should diminish. Continue through all 10 events. Speed up > slow down > speed up> slow down >etc
Keep an eye on traffic, as bedding in the pads will increase braking power/decrease stopping distances. You may want to activate Hazard lights while doing this.
After the last event, drive the car on the freeway for 15-20mins at normal speed, without braking/stopping, to cool down the brakes.
Head home.

Dragging the brakes will not bed-in the pads, this will just cause excessive wear, so don't try to cheat the bed-in procedure this way. Do not stop the car while the brakes have become hotter than normal, this will cause a spot on the brakes that will have an uneven friction surface, which will cause a pulsing in the pedal.


As for 'warped' rotors, no such thing...
The “Warped” Brake Disc and Other Myths of the Braking System by Carroll Smith

This pdf also includes proper brake bed-in procedures.

 

Mike, I normally agree with you on almost everything but in this case I have to respectfully disagree....with regards to rotors not warping

After I did my rotor over hub swap I used to have warped rotors all the time. Then I decided to put the rotor screws in and haven't had a single issue with pulsating rotors. While I can't say scientifically that rotors don't warp, it would appear that they do, imo, just going by my experiences with many cars and what appears to be warped rotors.

I suppose it could be a combination of the two, I can't really rule it out.

Obviously this doesn't apply to captive rotors since they are more secure in place.

 

That sounds more like a misalignment of the rotor.
Mazda I drove used screws to keep the rotors attached, I forgot to reinstall them once and was promptly greeted with a cyclical 'whoomping' pulsation in the pedal. I was surprised, and puzzled, at the outcome until I discovered my mistake. From the witness marks on the rotor it was offset a tiny amount. Pads were already on the edge of the rotor and what I was feeling was the transition of the pads being on the edge to over the edge. The rotor was mimicking an elliptical orbit, for lack of a better term. I chalked it up to sloppy tolerances on the register bore.
Now that you mention something similar, I wonder if the register bore is intentionally a bit on the loose tolerance side. There are faster and cheaper ways to keep a rotor attached flush to the hub for production. Two countersunk screws does seem like a bit of machining just to keep rotors attached prior to wheel installation.

Over-torquing the lug nuts may also cause a similar issue that is attributed to warping where the rotor hat can be deformed from being distorted that the rotor disc can become conical, which does all sorts of funky things to the hat/hub/rotor, and can cause the caliper to stick.

Cheap or thin rotors will cause pulsations due to the swept area of the disc being too thin. When the rotor heats up the pulsation is not from uneven pad material deposits, but from the metal unsupported by the vanes collapsing under heat and pressure. There is a lack of stiffness/thermal capacity, rotor overheats and becomes softer before pad fade/boiled fluid can occur.

I see what your saying. However, unlike a piece of wood that grows and has its original shape manipulated, cast rotors/drums do not have an original shape to attempt to grow/twist back into.

 

Heat any piece of metal up enough and it will warp and distort. I've seen lots of cheap white box rotors warp. Replace with OEM Honda rotors and the problem normally goes away.

 

My Honda dealer does all the work on my car using OEM Honda parts. For 17 years, I have never had any issues with the original front brakes/rotors. The front brakes were replaced by the dealer and 16,000 miles later the brake pedal pulsated. Brought the car in and was told the original rotors needed to be replaced and couldn't be resurfaced. OEM Honda rotors installed and 6,000 miles later the brake pedal is pulsating. Why! Original rotors were never touched or resurfaced and they lasted 166,000 miles.

 

Rotors that are not made from the correct grey cast iron, or impurities, will change shape unevenly. I never said the rotors are not affected by heat, with grey cast iron there is a uniform change.

Smileygirl try to bed-in the brake pads as I mentioned above.