Brake problems on 1999 1.6 Civic Vti Coupe.

I have a 1999 1.6 Civic Vti Coupe with which I am having brake problems.
It has done 39k miles and went into my local Honda dealer to have the pads
changed when the right rear wear indicator started to contact the disc.
Front and rear were changed.
When the car went in to the dealer the brakes were working perfectly and
were very sharp especially at low speed braking (30 mph or less) and
requiring minimal pedal pressure.
When it came out the pedal required much more force to get the car to stop
especially now from slow speeds.
Emergency stops work OK.
Many days of spending money and arguing with the dealer got me nowhere, in
the end neither did contacting Honda UK.
The car has done over 1000 miles now so they are bedded in and still feel
the same.
The system has been bled twice.
I have had another new set of pads on the front, different make fitted at
a different garage, no difference so the Honda ones went back in.
When the disks (rotors) have a light coating of morning rust on them then
the brakes pull up like they used to, once the rust has gone (2 presses),
back to normal.
Front rotors very lightly scored (way less than 0.5mm).
Front Rotor thickness measured at 20.98mm on a digital Micrometer.
I re-surfaced the front pads just in case they were glazed, no effect.
I sanded the front rotors with a mechanical detail sander and there was an
improvement until they went shiny again.
It used to feel like my 2000 1.8 Vti Civic (22k miles) but now it feels
more like my 1989 2.0i Prelude (160k miles on the original rotors)
The best description of how it feels is it feels like you have just been
through water, light braking poor, heavy braking OK but with much more
pedal pressure required.
This has been ongoing now since mid October 2004, can anyone please tell
me what the problem is with my braking system?

Thanks
G

 

I've read this several times over, trying to narrow this down.

It sounds at this point like either of two things are happening here:
1) Rear brakes are not functioning, or
2) the new pads are too hard.


How well does the parking brake (handbrake) work? Will it easily hold the
car on an incline, or do you really have to haul hard on the lever to get
the car to stay?

If you bring the car up to speed, then use the handbrake ONLY to brake,
does the car skew to one side or does it go straight? (Hold the handbrake
button in with your thumb while you do this, and make sure there's nobody
close behind.)

When's your next MoT?

 

Il Fri, 28 Jan 2005 06:29:00 -0500, Tech21 ha scritto

It happened to me. Sometimes there was much less breaking force with no
apparent reason (no fading, no heating, no strange noises).
When I argued the 3rd time the brake pads were replaced with original
Honda - they should be Nissin (no Nissan!) - instead of no-name ones.
All was fine afterwards.

Hope this helps

 

Thanks guys.
I am going to swap the front pads over to the aftermarket set that I have
and see if there is a difference over a couple of hundred miles because I
think that I may have removed them prematurely (after only 4 days) and
need to give them a fair crack of the whip.

The handbrake is fine and holds on a hill no problem and doesn't cause any
change in direction or the car to skew if used when the car is moving, if
anything, the slowing power using just the handbrake feels better than I
would normaly have expected.
If you hit the foot brake when using the handbrake the brake performance
still feels as bad as before.

The MOT is due in May but it will pass an MOT brake test as the test is
all to do with maximum braking levels and the maximum braking level of the
car isn't an issue it is the low speed braking and the pedal pressure
required that is the problem (the pass level is set at around 50% efficent
in the UK for an MOT but I for one would not like to drive a car with 50%
efficent brakes!!).
I say the high speed braking is OK BUT, the car will stop in a very short
space from 60mph and above if you brake hard but there appears to be what
could only be described as a slight delay before the brakes start to bite
and I am sure this wasn't happening before (servo perhaps? any way to test
it? possible crimped brake pipe?).

I am not sure what type the "Honda" pads are so I will get the part
numbers and makers name from them when I remove them today and will post
the numbers here after I get them just in case they are the wrong ones
(will also post the aftermarket numbers as well).

One thing that could be a problem, the Civic 1.6 Vti Coupe's were
manufactured in the USA and I am wondering if the UK supplied pads are a
harder compound or are from a different supplier, not the one that
supplied the originals?

As yet I haven't checked the rear pads and rotors so I will do that today
(if possible) if it stops raining that is!!!

Many thanks for taking the time to reply

G

 

If your handbrake is working properly then the rear brakes are probably
fine.

Has the garage checked to make sure the pistons are free in their bores? If
the pistons have been extended and have accumulated gum on them, then
pushed back into their bores to accommodate new pads, they can stick on the
gum that has built up. When this happens, they will be more reluctant to
emerge from their bores when you step on the pedal, but will also drag a
bit when you let off the pedal.

If the pistons are free in their bores, they will extend about 1/16" when
the pedal is pushed (with the caliper off the rotor), but then move back in
slightly when the pedal is released. If this happens correctly, and if the
pads and calipers are all free on their slides, then it must be the
composition of the pads.

Maybe your British pads are a different composition than ours (harder), and
they need to heat up a bit before working properly, which would suggest a
high metallic component. Does your Honda dealer have different pad grades?

I'd be wary of aftermarket pads, which are sometimes even harder than OEM
and can overheat the rotors to the point of warpage, and even cause them to
go blue from the heat.

 

Brake pads details:
Aftermarket
Made by
MK KASHIYAMA CORP, JAPAN (this info only on instructions in the box)
Numbers on pads
90R 01280 / 043
D5070M (there are the numbers 01 after the M but only in the number on
the box, not on the pad).

Honda pads
Common to all pads
NISSIN
NBK D6643HFF
001 [e6] 010020
There are a series of white inked numbers that differentiate right and
left with wear indicator and the outer two pads
R/H/F 453810 and 453824
L/H/F 453717 and 453824

The pads also looked to have lost quite a lot of thickness when I removed
them this morning. Measuring the friction material only not including the
metal backing, there is just under 9mm left on each pad, didn’t measure
‘em new but they look visibly thinner after only 1000 miles.

I asked the dealer the day the car was taken back in if they kept the old
pads or indeed if they had made a note of the removed pads make, thickness
etc and they hadn’t bothered.
When I worked as a mechanic we always gave any removed components back to
the customer as they were the customers property (oil filters being the
exception to this, unless they were requested, and some were!!).

The garage said the pistons were clean and free (but without checking
myself I can't be sure).

I will check the piston moves back in after the pedal is pushed and report
back.

One thing of note, when I did repeated emergency stops (around 5 or 6 of
them) on 3 occasions when starting off after stopping, the car pulled to
the left for a short time as if a piston was sticking.
The pads are easy to get in and out of the spring shims and don't appear
to be binding and the calliper slides all appear to be free (front only, I
haven't checked the rear as yet)

Thanks once again

G

 

[...]

Do you know what pads were in it when you noticed the need to
change them?

The pads in my old BMW320 were aftermarket ones and were
wearing a bit thin so at a servicing session I decided to put BMW
ones in. I was amazed at the extra pressure needed to brake
around town. They bedded in over the next week or two but never
to the point that the other pads were. I'm wondering if this is the
case with your pads?

 

If all else fails would it be worth having a few thou turned (or preferably
ground) off the rotors, or fitting new rotors and pads?

Cheers

G

 

If you want, but I thought you tried new pads and rotors already?

If you're using OEM pads and rotors, swapping them would not likely achieve
anything.

I'm sure your problem is something not moving as it should, whether
pistons, pads or caliper.

 

Only changed the pads not rotors. I did sand the rotors with a hand held
Bosch detail sander and there was an improvement similar (but not as
pronounced) to the improvement when the rotors have a light coating of
overnight rust on them.
I think I agree that it is something not moving as it should and given
what was done (i.e. pads pushed back in callipers) I think that it would
be prudent to have the calliper bores and pistons cleaned to see if that
makes any difference.

The one thing that I find odd is that when the car went back in to the
dealers the first time (after a couple of days) they found air in the
system and charged me another £30 (on top of the £200+ for the pads being
fitted) for removing it. When I asked why the charge when they had just
fitted pads and should have bled the system then, the dealership got very
defensive and quite hostile when I refused to pay and would not give me my
keys back until I paid the money. They insisted that they could not have
got air in the system and it must have been something that I had done to
the car which was not true, I only started working on the car when I had
exhausted every avenue of getting the Franchise to get my brakes working
the same way as they were when the car came in to have the new pads
fitted.
The total defensiveness of the dealer made me think that they had done
something to the car that they were not going to admit to and then 6
months down the line tell me that I need a new master cylinder or a new
servo. I have used this dealership for the last 9 years or so and have
only had problems with them when the local owned franchise was taken over
by a much larger national franchise also I have found out from on of the
guys there who worked on the service desk and has since left the place
that most of the mechanics who had been there 15 years+ had left the place
and gone working for Jaguar, Ford, Volvo, Mazda etc so something there is
rotten and I feel that they have "economical" with the truth over what has
happened to my car.
All I want now is to get my Civic working properly at whatever the cost
and I will NEVER be using that franchise again, problem is that they have
taken over nearly all of the local owned and family owned Honda garages
for miles around leaving me no option but to drive miles to get to a
dealer that isn't owned by this particular franchise.
Sorry about the soapbox rant but I needed to get it off my chest and I
still believe that they have screwed up something major and expensive and
are keeping quiet about it.
I still favour that they have knobbed the master cylinder in some way
shape or form when they pushed the fluid back into it as opposed to
cracking the bleed nipples off and pushing the fluid out that way.
Is there any way of testing the master cylinder or servo to get
quantifiable figures??

All the help is much appreciated and I will get to the bottom of this,
eventually.

 

Step on the foot pedal and hold it. If it eventually goes to the floor,
there is a leak somewhere, possibly in the master cylinder. If the pedal
does NOT go to the floor, but settles to a position OFF the floor and stays
there, the master cylinder is OK.

You mention air in the lines. This is interesting, and I had not thought of
that. Air will cause the pedal to feel spongy and soft. You had not
reported a spongy, soft pedal before, just a delayed pedal effect. I wonder
if I've misinterpreted your description?

A note here: Sometimes removing air from the calipers is not easy,
especially at the rears. Bubbles can adhere to internal surfaces.

You may need to remove the caliper from the mount bracket, insert a piece
of wood to keep the piston still, rap the caliper with a nylon hammer while
turning it over in your hands, then bleed. This may need to be done
repeatedly.

It is possible to accidentally get air in the master cylinder and
proportioning valve while bleeding if you forget to check the master
cylinder level as you work (easy to do!). If air gets into the master
cylinder, this can be difficult to remove without "bench bleeding" it,
which means removing the MC from the car.

 

The pedal doesn't feel spongy in the normal sense of having air in the
system it just requires more effort (and pushing farer down) to get the
car to slow down. Sometimes if you pump the pedal the car will pull up
better but only on the odd occasion, so it doesn't appear to look like air
in the system in the normal sense.
The pedal doesn't feel any different now as to when it first came back
from the dealers after having the pads fitted. I took it back for a
mechanic to test drive on a Saturday morning, he drove it, said the that
the pedal pressure required felt like the servo hadn't been connected but
(same as I did) he pumped the brakes with the engine off to get rid of the
vacuum, pedal went solid, pressure on the pedal - switch engine on - pedal
goes down so the servo is working. He booked the car back in and they
found air in the system.
Since getting the car back after pads were fitted the pedal has felt the
same, with air in the system (as they claimed) or bled out (as they also
claimed). It feels the same now as it did before the Honda mechanic
test-drove it and said that there was a problem with it. This is why I am
very pissed off because nothing that has been done to the car since has
made any difference to how the pedal feels, the only time it feels OK is
when the rotors have rusted up over night, this is the only car out of the
5 that I own that pulls up better with light rust on the rotors, all the
others (Civic 1.8 Vti, 2.0 Prelude, Saab Griffin V6 and a 305CuI Chevrolet
C10) don't start working properly untill the rust has been removed by the
first few brake applications.
The mechanic who test drove it no longer works there (so I am told) so
there is no way I can ask him if it feels any better and all the other
mechanics from there who have driven it say it's OK, it's safe and that
"..they all feel like that.." when I know for a fact that they don't all
feel like that.

I assume that I check the M/C with the engine off and the servo at
atmospheric?
The pedal can be pushed all the way to the floor with the servo running,
is this normal? because it is much harder to floor the pedal on my 1.8
Vti.

Is there anything electrical that could affect the brakes, something that
I can remove the fuse to dis the circuit so the electrics are out of the
equation?

Regards

G

 

NO NO NO! Not at all.

The pedal should stop a good inch off the floor.

If the pedal goes to the floor right away if you push hard enough, there's
air in the system somewhere. It might not be in the lines themselves, but
in the MC or calipers.

If the pedal takes 30 secxonds or so to sink slowly to the floor, there is
the possibility of a leak, most likely in the MC.

The only thing I can think of is ABS. Did they bleed the ABS at the same
time as the rest of the system?


You've got air in there.