2010 Honda Accord Crosstour: Warp 2, Captain

Good luck with that. Hondas have awful brakes. I just replaced all the rotors on my TSX with Brembos and ceramic pads. What a difference.

Both my 2004 Accord and 2006 TSX had easily warped brakes. The Honda much more so since it was an automatic.

I cannot stand warped rotors, I had a '03 Tundra that no matter what I did the brakes warped, I actually got rid of it because of it.

Time for Brembos and Hawk SuperDuty pads!

My front pads were switched left-for-right from a dealer servicing. Last time I go there.

10 points for Star trek reference.
10 more would be possible, if you had led with some more detail:
Like Warp 2 Ensign Crusher

1000 more points if you had proceeded to point out why Crusher sucked.

Oh, bad news on those Honda brakes, I hate warped rotors...although it's most likely not a warped rotor, but deposit on the rotors themselves.

old_volvo: I think I'm eligible for an extra 50 points for sating it in my best George Takei voice. Oh my.

My 2008 Mazda3 warps rotors like there is no tomorrow. I will stick with it while the car is OK otherwise, but I will probably look for other brands when I need a new one. I was thinking TSX, but if Acuras have crappy brakes then the search continues...

I agree with old_volvo - it's pad deposition. Honda always seems to specify the crappiest pads available. Seems like dust and noise are more important to them than stopping and durability.

See if you can find some Hawk HPS pads. They don't dust much, last pretty well and feel normal while having good stopping ability. They even stand up to pretty aggressive driving. In fact, just changing the pads might clean off the deposits and restore smooth braking. It's probably just the fronts too.

If that doesn't work, order some Cryo-treated rotors along with the new pads.

Good post - brakes are the most important (and arguably the "strongest") force in the car.

Reading many of the IL car reviews, I seem to remember braking not being a high point of any of their vehicles, with "adequate," 130ft distances and lengthening successive stops. Not something to write home about, and it would easily lead to warping.

Any thoughts on whether this is due to pushing the vehicle too hard? Or just normal wear-and-tear? Can't say that IL is easy on vehicles, but they're not all that hard either...

Kevin

I've owned a '76 Accord, an '80 Accord 4-door, an '81 Civic wagon, an '84 Civic S, and an '88 Accord 4-door. Everyone of those cars suffered from warped rotors—more than once. Will Honda ever make decent brake rotors?

It's not warpage. I used to think it was too on my old Civics/Integras. Tried many things, including turning the rotors while still on the car to help compensate for any runout in the axles or wheel bearings. But it would always come back, even under light driving.

Then I heard about a problem with pad material building up on rotors and causing high spots that would progressively become worse. I tried switching pads to a more aggressive compound on my CRX Si, which didn't have particularly good brakes either. Within 50 miles, the shuddering was gone. This doesn't always work. If the buildup goes on too long you end up with overheated spots as well. But on my CRX, once I'd switched pads, I never had a brake vibration again, even after multiple track days, etc.

The only Hondas I've ever spent significant time in without this issue were my 2000 S2000 and a preproduction 2006 Civic Si that I had for a few months. Both were more sporting and so may have had better pads to begin with. There is generally nothing wrong with Honda's brake sizing these days, they just refuse to specify proper pads (and IMO good tires too on all but the HPT option cars). It's really stupid on their part IMO since their cost difference would be next to nothing.

Other commenters are right, this isn't a warped disc and in fact a true warped disc is very rare. From what I understand, a big source of the problem is improper break-in of new pads. I'm sure crappy pads can't help though. Here's an interesting read on the subject: http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_warped_brakedisk.shtml

Good link joshdude. I always thought the metallic transformation was a more martensite and austentite, but the cementite makes more sense.

That's one thing I appreciate on any of my Audi's. They don't cheap out on brake hardware. I'm never felt a shimmy or a shake once, even when my brake pads were down to nothing. Lot's o' brake dust in the true German fashion and I never mind. Most American's hate brake dust and as a result they get brake pad compounds that cater to that and focus less on longevity and performance.

@rsholland "I've owned a '76 Accord, an '80 Accord 4-door, an '81 Civic wagon, an '84 Civic S, and an '88 Accord 4-door. Everyone of those cars suffered from warped rotors—more than once. Will Honda ever make decent brake rotors?"

Why should they when customers like you are apparently saying "Thank you sir may I have another?"

Seriously, they have no reason to spend the extra few bucks on better discs/pads when it doesn't appear to be a detriment to people buying the cars. Indeed, it's even a revenue source for Honda when those buyers get their brakes serviced at dealerships/with OEM parts.