KeithL

OK last time I did my own maintenance was almsot 20 years ago and the car had drum brakes all around! My 04 TL needs front pads soon and dealer wants $164 without even turning the rotors. Well hell the rotors seem to be fine but why pay him that much. My friend says modern disc brakes are usually a breeze, nothing but a clamp is needed to recompress the calipers. I rememebr having to pack bearinsg and such, he says this stuff is all free floating and sealed. Can someone tell me how eay it really is to throw on a set of pads? Do I need any special tools?

Thanks as usual!

Legend2TL

I've replaced brake pads on Honda/Acura's ~30-40 times. The vast majority are easy to do, resurfacing the rotors is kinda controversal but in general if the rotors are not warped (pulsing brake pedal or front vibration when brakes are applied) I leave them alone. There is no need to repack the bearings as your TL has sealed bearings (front and rear) and they are not serviceable (on the bright side here I've had 3 Honda/Acura's make it to 220K+ miles, none ever had their wheel bearing replaced).

The steps in the job are as follows.
1) Lossen front lug nuts
2) Raise front end of car.
3) Remove lug nuts and wheels
4) Remove caliper bolts.
5) rock caliper back and forth gently to remove it from caliper hanger.
6) Use a ziptie to secure caliper from steering knuckle (DO NOT LET CALIPER HANG FROM BRAKE HOSE).
7) Remove brake pads
8) Use brake cleaner and a wire brush to remove brake pad material from caliper and caliper hanger. Be careful of to avoid rubber dust boot on caliper and brake hose.
9) Push piston back into the caliper using a large "C" clamp. SOme people on this forum also open the brake nipple vavle to allow the used fluid to escape there versus going back up to the master cylinder and ABS modulator.
10) CAREFULLY put a very small amount of high temp brake grease on the metal sides of the pads and the back of the pads. DO NOT ALLOW ANY GREASE ON THE PAD.
11) Put in new pads in caliper hanger.
12) Regrease caliper slide pins.
13) Put caliper back on caliper hanger. retorque to proper setting (~30lbft?)
14) Put wheels back on.
15) lower car.
16) Torque wheel nuts to proper torque (~75lbft?)
17) Brake gently for the first 200 miles or so.

I recommend gettting the Acura shop manual, they have excellent instructions and illustrations.

KeithL

Thanks, I may just give it a try!

jdb8805

Pay close attention to those steps. #1 cause of Warped rotors improper/uneven wheel torque.

And I would torque the wheels to 30-40 lbft before lowering car.

Use Star Pattern when tightening lugs

Ron A

Check out this thread from the always useful 3G Garage.


D-041: FRONT AND REAR BRAKE PAD INSPECTION AND REPLACEMENT
https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118283

Brettg

That is exactly what I do!

I always open the bleed nipples, the fluid in the calipers is the worst in the system, no need to push it back into the sensitive parts.
Then bleed 1/2 a cup of new brake fluid out of each caliper.

If there is any question about the disks, get new ones.
You can usualy get very good brake parts on line for very low prices, like brembo
or ATE rotors, and pbr deluxe brake pads.
The PBR deluxe pads are great, low dust, good stopping, long lasting.
places like getcoolparts.com had rotors for about $30.00 and pads for $26.00
for 4 rear pads for my Passat, no sales tax and free shipping!
Other places offer the same deals, or better.
Its very bad news to have rotors turned, ALL modern cars use thin rotors
because big thick ones are very heavy, and detract from handling.
In many cases, the typical rotor costs about $30.00 on line, why pay to
have an old rusty one turned???

Other things I do are to remove the disks (or replace them) and clean the hub
and the wheel, where the disk mates, and coat with high temp disk brake grease,
that prevents rust and aids in heat transfer, sometimes cars are so bad you have to beat the disks off with a sledge hammer, the grease prevents that.

I use a tourqe wrench on the lug nuts in a do one skip one pattern till all ar tight
to about 80 foot pounds.
I NEVER had disks warp AFTER I did a brake job, and NEVER had any noise from
the brakes, on many types of cars.

The money you save by doing the work you can spend on new/better parts, and
get a MUCH better job to boot. Any shop is just going to throw new parts on, WILL push the old fluid back into the system, WONT use the grease, WILL hang the calipers by the hose, WONT bleed the brakes,WILL charge you a lot for crappy parts, and WILL put the lug nuts on using an air impact gun set to 200 foot pounds.

I have not looked at the acura, but most cars need to have the REAR caliper pistons screwed back into the caliper using a tool, you can buy them at various places, or rent one at some auto parts places.

I plan for maintanance activities, I order good parts, and on a nice day, put the tunes on, have a few cold ones, and enjoy some quality time with the car.
To me, there is a lot more to owning a car than just driving it, working on it you get to see how its built, and how things are holding up.

Brett

Legend2TL

Thanks for posting, one important thing to note here is it looks like the 5AT TL comes with Nissin calipers that only have one caliper bolt. The caliper swings upward out of the way when replacing pads. My wife's old Integra front calipers were very similar.

For that reason there is no reason to remove the pivoting swing bolt on the upper caliper mounting to the caliper hanger except for to regrease it (use high temp brake grease). So no ziptie is needed.

For those calipers like the 6Mt that have two caliper bolts, use a ziptie to secure to the front suspension.

You can use a old discarded bra also, my wife saw one of her ex-garments I fteched out of the trash being used to hold hang the calipers on her Acura Legend and let's just say she was not the least bit amused.

Legend2TL

Thanks for the corection. I forgot to add "put wheels on and lightly tighten down the lug nuts".

And yes, a star pattern and incremental tightening is very important to preventing warped rotors.

mamboking

Do any of you guys use loctite when bolting the calipers back on. I know I do. The mechanic that taught me how to change my brake pads said that he had seen some calipers get loose before.

mickey3c

I disagree with the idea that new rotors are thin since the old ones took away from the handling aspects of the car. They are thin and cheaper to save costs first. Years ago you hardly heard of anyone replacing a rotors unless they allowed the pads to wear down too much and it damaged the rotor. We are now beyond the era of making reliable cars that last a very long time and costs and competition have made car makers to take some shortcuts. And they make money when at 40K you need new pads and rotors and can charge 200-250/wheel for a full brake job.


And the 30.00 rotor price.. I see 75.00 each Here is one area where I would be concerned about a value priced product. I would replace the rotor when the pads wear out. Only reason is in the past after having brake pads replaced with rotors turned, the rotors would warp within a month or so... and I would have to have them replaced anyway....

Legend2TL

There are many reasons brake rotors have been slimmed down over the years. One important one is rotors that are too heavy do not heat up enough to create a higher coefficent of friction with modern brake pads. Brake pad technology has changed gradually over the years, the newer pads can provide lower wear and higher coefficient of friction.

Another reason is to save fuel, since rotors are rotating mass which is crucial to reduce to get better fuel economy. But I disagree if this was done for cost primarily, most (if not all) auto makers are concerned about owner safety and want to have some margin of safety. So less heavy rotors were not created to save cost of cast iron which is very inexpensive from a raw and processed material cost.

Another issue is the application, being the braking environment (vehicle speed and weight and time to slow down or stop). It's all a great compromise on providing a optimum brake solution. Take a look at a 20 year old Road and Tarck and compare stopping distances of current cars to those 20 years ago, the stopping distances keep slowly going down as newer cars come out typically.

Legend2TL

That is a very good idea.

Brettg

I have got brembo rotors on the Jaguar, very good rotors.
I used both ATE and brembo rotors on the passat, both were good.

They are just cast steel, not rocket science, and most brands will likely be ok, as
long as they are not drilled or slotted. Cheap ones might not last quite as long....

Less weight equals better stopping distances, quicker acceleration, more stability on bumpy roads, its called unsprung weight. Cars are also using loads of alluminum and other alloys, more expensive stuff, to shave weight off the car to get the shorter stopping distance, quicker accleration, better mpg.
I think its nonsense to think a company that makes the sub frame out of a very expensive alloy is going to save money by using less cheap steel in the brake disks. That is just a silly idea, the difference in price between the stock TL
disk and one 20% thicker is about 20 cents? I think it would be more like 5 cents,
just for the metal.
I dont know how much they think about service costs, many companies seem to be going the other way with 150,000 mile tune ups, lifetime fluids, and so on, to lower the maintanance costs car buying guides show for various brands.

The lowest price I found for front rotors for the auto trans TL's was $26.00. The brembo setup on the 6MT cost $56.00 each.

By the time I need brakes, I hope more companies start making the parts.

Brett