02 Accord front uneven disk pad wear question

[Pawl]

101,000 mi on car. 4 cylinder - I put new ceramic disc pads on front wheels and turned rotors 30,000 mi ago. I did an inspection today. The driver side disc pad has about 30% of the pad remaining compared to the right side. In other words the left looks like about an 1/8" and the right looks about 3/8". My first thought is the original caliper on the left is not working properly. Any thoughts?

[gmtech1]

Does the car pull either way when braking? Make sure that the pads are able to move freely in their mounts. Also are the pads wearing evenly on the left side? The inner and outer pads? Are the pads on the right side (inner and outer) wearing the same?
You also made a comment about the "original" caliper on the left side, has the right side been replaced?

[gmtech1]

Also make sure the calipers are able to move on their sliders/pins.

[Pawl]

1st of all, I went and measured the remaining disc pad with a measuring tape where initially I was using my eyes. I know a tape measure is not exact but when you measure both sides with the same tape measure you can compare. So on the passenger side I got 2/8 (1/4) and drivers side was 1/8 so I was not as accurate with my eyes on initial observation. Car does not pull either way. I have not pulled the pads out of the caliper. I was rotating tires and did a look see at the pads. But I am going to change the pads due to the wear I found. I will look at the inner/outer pads of each caliper to compare the wear.They are both the original calipers. I had the rotors turned 30,000 miles ago. The brake pedal does not pulsate.If I find the pads are not wearing evenly on each caliper that would indicate what? Sticky calipers? Plus maybe your mention of the slider/pins could be sticking and causing a problem. If I find the inner/outer pads of each caliper are wearing evenly then my 29 yr old daughter who drives this car might just be hard on braking. The rear brakes are bonded brakes and they are fine.

[gmtech1]

Sounds like you may not have a problem at all. Very rarely will all the brake pads wear excatly the same. Make sure you clean and lube the sliders when you reassemble the brakes.

[jeffcoslacker]

A driver who uses two feet on the pedals with an auto transmission can do this too...when they put light pressure on the brake pedal whichever caliper moves easier will apply and drag.

Usually caliper/slider seize issues manifest in uneven wear between inner and outer pads on the same wheel, as was mentioned, not overall difference in wear wheel to wheel.

But when you are talking about pads that worn out, the difference is pretty negligible. If you had one caliper with 65% pad and the other with 40%, I'd be alarmed. But those pads are very thick when new, so you are talking about not a huge difference....it just looks more profound because there's not much left to begin with. You are probably talking more along the lines of 10% vs 15% remaining, so even though it looks like you've got one side 50% more worn, compared to original spec it's nominal. Follow me?

Anyway, if it brakes straight, doesn't make weird noises and the rotors don't show any bluing or something to indicate excessive heat, I wouldn't obsess about it much....

Now if you have drum rear. one thing to consider....FWD cars use what's called split diagonal braking, which means that the two chambers in the master cylinder each operate one front and one rear brake, diagonally opposed. So LF-RR, RF-LR.

It is not beyond the scope of possibility that an improperly adjusted rear drum brake, like one with a seized star wheel adjuster, can be using more than it's share of pedal effort and reducing the performance of its front disc counterpart...upshot being that FWD cars rarely pull to one side due to uneven action of brakes on the same axle...with a split diagonal you can actually have one side of the braking circuit completely inoperative and still have pretty good braking feel...which is both a blessing and a curse....it makes them more controllable if one side of the hydros were to fail, but also masks some of the subtleties of braking performance that let you know something is not quite right, reduced feedback, in other words.

I'm just saying all this to demonstrate that with FWD cars, you need to consider the entire braking system when trying to find a problem, don't think in terms of just front/rear....you'll get fooled.

[Pawl]

1st of all I noticed when I took the pads out from both front calipers that both inner pads were almost worn down to nothing where my earlier explanation of the outer pads was that I could measure and do a visual while still on the car showing much more braking material left versus the inner.
Like I said earlier I have 101,000 miles on this car. Looking through my records I have never done a rear brake job on this car. Meaning I have never had it apart. Everytime I rotate tires (about every 8000 mi) I take off rear drums,blow them out with air hose and do a visual. The previous owner gave me the records he had so up to now the rear brakes are original.I bought it with 48,000 miles on it.I would assume he had the front disc pads replaced during that period. I just didn't find any receipt in the file he gave me regarding any work done on the front brakes.And during those 48,000 miles there's a good chance the rear brakes were never replaced. At 70,275 miles I put ceramic pads on the front and had rotors turned. At 101,192 miles (12/18/11) I replaced rotors,nu ceramic pads and calipers.
With my years of being a backyard mechanic and if my memory serves me right from past experience with cars I would have done a rear brake job within the 1st 100,000 miles. And I have no record of doing it. Maybe I need to dig a little deeper into the rear brakes and make sure they are operating properly. With the money I already spent on the front brakes I might as well replace the rear brake shoes and nu wheel cylinder kits just for preventative reasons. It will also let me checks parts of the rear braking system to see if those adjusting stars are sticking or stuck. I have also bought rear spring kits in the past when the mileage was high and I think this would qualify.