Replacing Rear Brake Rotors and Pads – 1998 Honda Accord

If I had to guess, which I do, which replacement part of a car is most overlooked, I would say the rear brakes. I say this because I always overlook them. I do this probably because the front brakes do something like 70% of the braking action. I have changed the front brakes on almost all of my cars.

The problem with only replacing the front brake pads and rotors is that you are leaving the rears with compromised braking ability, meaning, the rear brakes aren’t doing their jobs as much as they should be. What does this cause? Well, it causes increased stress on the front brakes resulting in faster wear on the pads and higher heat on the rotors, which equals warping. I guess the moral of this story is to make sure you replace your rear brake pads and rotors from time to time. This will save you money in the long run.

Gee, if I only had followed my own advice, my rear rotors wouldn’t have looked like this…

Yes, that’s mine. I did the back brakes last evening. Look at the small shiny area where the pads were actually touching the rotor.

I will go over this for only one tire, since the other side was identical. First, I pulled off the tire. Then, I had to drill out the two small screws holding on the rotor. Once that was done, I took off the caliper and then the piece that holds the caliper on to the spindle. I had to do this because that piece wrapped around the rotor. I had no choice. Everything was pretty easy to take off, except for those two rotor screws. I had to scrape some gunk off some existing parts to make it easier to put on the new parts, but everything went smoothly. I would say that the whole thing took about an hour.

Believe it or not, my least favorite part about working on my car is carrying the jack from the basement to the driveway.