Hello, After replacing my brake pads a few times; I think I created a problem. Only my front passenger brake is getting used, while the driver side has not been applied at all. So, I called the repair shop, they said your caliper is bad and you would need to replace both calipers. If I purchased a 1998 Honda Accord 4 CYL EX caliper online, would this be a job a novice could replace? Or should I bring it into the shop to have them do a full front brake job for $250? And how can I confirm the caliper is definitely bad, and is there a way to fix this without replacing? Regards, --tj
============================= Test it by punching the brakes on a dirty stretch of road. More likely you've got seized slider pins on the passenger's side, so it's wearing that side out 100 times as fast as it's supposed to. www.tegger.com has some info, or you could google 'honda slider pins' and get a bunch of hits from www.hondasuv.com 'Curly'
Should I just replace the slider pins on both sides with a new set of pads, and see if the problem goes away?
Just like everything else to do with cars, confirm the diagnosis. I would think the first thing you want to do is swing up the caliper (the same way you would if when are replacing the pads) & see of the pins move freely. If they do, then that's not the problem. If you find pins that don't move (I agree with Curly, I'll bet you find some), see if you can free them. If you can free them, then the pins may only need to be cleaned up and re-lubed. If you can't free them, then a new caliper might be in order.
Depends entirely on what's wrong. By your description, the piston is well-seized in its bore, which means either a rebuild or replacement. No fix for that. A used caliper is a bad buy if you intend to use it as-is; it is likely partially seized up as well. If you must replace the calipers without doing proper diagnosis, get aftermarket remans from a jobber. Do not replace just one caliper; your brakes will pull to one side.
easier than that, if one pad is wearing more than the other, it's the sliders. if not, it's the piston jamming, just like tegger says. and it can be both. unless you know exactly what you're doing in rebuildsville, just replace. both sides.
replacing honda calipers isn't hard. certainly easier than rebuilding one. afterwards, you will want to bleed the brakes, which goes a lot easier with another person. might as well completely replace the brake juice at the time. find out what the correct bleeding sequence is for the car, they apparently vary from car to car, from my experience. although i haven't seen anybody who ended up with a problem by doing it in the wrong order. like everybody said, though, if it's just the sliders, you don't need to replace the caliper or even the sliders, just take them out and grease them up. they pretty much get stuck after a year or so anyway. but that will show up as wear on one pad from the pair, not wear on neither pad. if neither pad is wearing, as you said, that's new caliper time. biggest problem i've had with rebuilt calipers is that different ones come with different complements of the little diddly hardware, springs and shims that sit behind the pads, etc. nothing absolutely critical, but could affect nose, etc. sometimes two calipers from the same rebuilder will come with different hardware, that's from a reputable import parts place. so i save the old stuff and reuse it where necessary.
