When my wife bought her 2020 RDX I told her I was to old to do regular maintenance and I was just going to go to the dealer to have all service done. Well the code popped up to have the oil changed, rear diff fluid changed and brake fluid flush. I called the dealer and their price is near $400 to do that service. So I'm back in the maintenance business again for my wife's RDX. .

Anyways - for the brake fluid flush I found a video of a guy doing the flush along with other service - . He's pretty thorough and the video is pretty good. For the brake fluid flush it's what I would have done in the past on other vehicles I've owned.
- Suck out most of the fluid from the reservoir.
- Fill the reservoir with new proper DOT 3 fluid.
- Start at the passenger rear and bleed the brakes using the old method of someone pumping up the brakes then open the bleeder and do this until the new fluid runs out. (I'm thinking about getting a pressure bleeder for this part)
- Top off the reservoir and continue with the rest of the brakes.

My question is in regards to the electronic parking brakes and how or if they affect the bleeding process.

On my F-150 with electronic parking brakes when doing a brake fluid flush the process from Ford says the following.
Since the RDX has electronic parking brakes I'm wondering if there's anything special I need to do with the parking brakes when flushing the system? I haven't been able to find any info on this and wondering if anyone else has.

Thanks all.


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How much does your dealer charge for just the brake flush? How many miles are currently on your RDX?

 

I think it's $180 for the brake fluid flush at the dealer. The car has 12K miles, but it's just about to turn 3 years old. If they were reasonable I'd pay them to do it. But a quart of Acura brake fluid is about $20. I'm just to dang cheap to pay them $160 for labor when I can do it myself in less than an hour.

 

Other than a "bleed" when doing a brake job, I don't ever remember "flushing" the entire brake system on any car I've ever owned. All of which I put well over 100,000 miles on.

3 years sounds like dealer welfare. Not something I would do between brake jobs, if then.

 

Yeah...I hear ya. Back in the day (I sound like my father) I would not have done a complete system flush unless something occurred that forced me to. But on this car, which I plan to keep for a very long time, I am doing my best to follow the maintenance minder that pops up and indicates what service is required at any point in time. I'm sure Acura pads this stuff so they can get more people into their dealerships to generate revenue. But for $20 and an hours worth of time I don't mind doing it. Whether it's really needed or not who knows. But if I gotta take it to the dealer for some type of warranty service at least I can prove to them I'm following the recommended service schedule.

 

At least you're handy enough to have the option! I am not handy at all, so I am stuck taking my RDX to the dealership. Fortunately, I have a Honda dealership that is literally 2 minutes away from me. I have taken my RDX (21' Aspec with 18k miles) there for every service since I bought it. The Acura dealership closest to me is a good 50 minutes away. Unless I have some warranty related issue (had a couple), I can't see driving all the way out there for the same service I'd get at Honda. Most of the time, it's a little cheaper too

You really don't drive much! I thought I was super low with 18k miles!

 

Yeah...it's my wife's car. Shortly after we bought it everything went into lockdown for covid. So she started working from home and never went back into the office. If we're going somewhere we usually take my truck.
I have an Acura dealer not too far away. When we bought the car I swore I wasn't working on it because after 50 years of doing all my own maintenance I was just sick of working on vehicles. That is until they quoted me for the service...ha.

 

Maybe try a Honda dealer if you also have one of them close by?? Labor rates will/should be less. Also check dealer's website for coupons.

 

Rather than a pressure bleeder, you can get a mityvac with a brake fluid attachment that will attach to the bleeder screw and sucks the old fluid through to each corner. I find it the easiest way to do brake fluid 'flushes' on my own

 

Thanks. After I made my original post I looked into those vacuum bleeders and they seem to be the way to go.

 

it’s actually very easy, costs about $20 in brake fluid, and with another person takes maybe 30 minutes to do, here is the OEM manual on how to do it (attached from Honda tech line for a 2019 RDX, should be the same for all the new years as well), I wouldn’t use a vacuum bleeder, get a proper brake fluid wrench and just follow the manual

for the tubing you will want

3/16 in. I.D. x 5/16 in. O.D.

vinyl tubing to hook onto the bleeder

i get the OEM fluid from curry, in the bigger 32oz bottles, you could probably get away with 1 but I would get 2, I always push some extra fluid through to really get the old crap out, even with low miles you’ll see it looks pretty gross

$10 a bottle
https://www.curryacuraparts.com/oem-...ake-087989108a

I use 3 to do my RDX and my wife’s CR-V, whatever you don’t use it won’t save once you open it, you will just wanna recycle it when your done

so maybe $30 with shipping for 2 bottles, and another $10 for a pack of beer for your buddy that helps you push the pedal

 

Same here. Except when doing brake service I've never bled the brakes on any of my vehicles (well, except for my BMW R1150RT motorcycle where a replacement brake controller costs about $2k). OTOH, we live in the Arizona desert where the humidity is quite low and not much rain or any snow to help contaminate the fluid. However, I am a bit concerned with the complexity of the brake controllers so that might be a good reason to do it. I would think they might be more sensitive to contaminated brake fluid than the other brake components and probably a lot more expensive to replace.

I've always done all the maintenance on my vehicles for the last 60 yr so it was painful to take the RDX into the dealer for just an oil change. But I'll be 75 soon and just not physically able to do that stuff any more, esp when it's over 100F in the garage in the summer. Another reason why getting old kinda sucks...

 

yes, mityvac is a way to go if you can not find “helper” and work alone

 

I used to be handy. But my days of wrenching into cars are officially over. Something breaks on the car, I bring it to a guy. Something breaks in the house, I call a guy. There's guy for everything.

 

Its getting more difficult finding semi-competent "guy". Most of them want a lot of $ and do bad work. Service is getting worse in general.

 

FWIW, brake fluid absorbs water over time which lowers it's boiling point and can absorb enough water to cause corrosion to the internals of the brake components. Flushing the brake fluid every ~3 years (mileage doesn't matter) is just plain preventive maintenance and keeps your brake performance (hence fade) in check. There are plenty of refences for brake fluid flush/change every three years including Brembo , linked below.

As for technique, I use single person bleeding these days but this works for two or one person pedal bleeding

1) use a cheap turkey baster to remove all but perhaps the bottom 1/4" of the old fluid from the brake fluid reservoir.
2) Fill with new DOT3 brake fluid (for Honda/Acura), I use Prestone Synthetic DOT3 brake fluid available at Walmart
3) Attach a 3/16" clear hose with a small hose clamp to caliper nipple valve, put the other end of the hose into a clear jar with a hole big enough for the tube.
4) Open the nipple valve ~1/4 turn, just enough so brake fluid can escape but not too far that allows air back into the caliper.
5) pump the brake pedal ~4-6 times, check the reservoir fluid level and fill up to the max level.
6) look at the brake fluid coming through the hose it should look be the color and clearness of the new fluid eventually.
7) repeat 5-6 until the fluid is clear and no bubbles are seen.
8) Tighten the nipple valve to ~7ft.lb. and remove the hose/clamp
9) move on to the next brake caliper (most Honda/Acura brake bleeding order is FL, FR, RR, RL)

The vacuum tools also work well, but I've been doing the single person pedal bleeding for about a dozen years and get great results. Use to use two person bleeding until I discovered that single person is just as effective.

Brembo
https://www.bremboparts.com/africa/e...-my-car-195105

Haynes
https://haynes.com/en-gb/tips-tutori...-and-how-often

 

First bold, I don't think it's too critical but I've always seen in Acura and Honda shop manuals for bleeding/flushing order of FL, FR, RR, RL

Second bold, we have a 2017 CR-V and I don't think the parking brake being applied makes much difference but I leave it off for brake bleeding/flushing

Forgot to mention in previous post to always put the protective rubber cap back on the nipple valves to prevent contamination and rust from forming.

 

If there is any chance of air in the system (such as accidentally letting the master cylinder get empty while bleeding, or replacing brake components such as master cylinder, rear brake caliper, rear brake hose, other), the Honda procedure calls for applying and releasing the electric parking brake 5 times (after bleeding all the brakes), then bleeding the rear calipers again.

 

Definitely, if during flushing/bleeding the master cylinder reservoir goes dry they air will be in the brake lines wasting all that work so it's best to frequently check the reservoir level to keep it at the high level while bleeding. Whenever a brake component is replaced then yes, bleeding/flushing will have to get the air out of the brake system. When replacing a master cylinder or ABS modulator then all four brake calipers will have to be bleed. If only a brake caliper or local brake hose (that connects the brake lines to the calipers), then in theory only that caliper needs to be bleed. One thing that helps alot while replacing a caliper is to tap on the piston area with a soft faced hammer so that air bubbles that often stick to the interior walls and get trapped work their way up to the nipple valve.

As for the parking brake, I do not have the shop manual for our CR-V so I don't know what the official Honda/Acura procedure is for bleeding with the rear electric parking brake servo. AFAIK unfortunately Honda/Acura currently only leases the service manuals for their new vehicles. I've owned the official Honda/Acura manuals for all our vehicles until they changed their policy which is a shame. Honda/Acura shop manuals used to be ~$80-$120, well worth the investment. Now it's a time based subscription.

I can't understand why the parking brake would need to be cycled as it's a electric stepper motor that is mechanically screwing in the piston to put force on the brake pads against the rotor. Very similar to Acura/Honda's of the mid-80's to mid 90's when they used the rear brake pads as parking brake mechanism but did the force mechanically with the parking brake cable/lever/ratchet. Then Honda/Acura switched to a small parking brake shoe/drum arrangement in the center of the rear brake disc in the mid-90's to the early 2010's. Now, it's a small stepper motor attached to the side of the piston housing on the caliper.