I know this may have been discussed before, but I just wanted to give a cautionary tale to those that live in an area that uses road salt. Your axles will most likely snap in half at the most inconvienent time. The dampeners/insulators located on both axle shafts perfectly trap moisture and salt, slowly corroding them to the point that they will literally snap in half. Trust me. The failure of an axle is, shall we say, startling. My drivers side axle failed last year, and the passenger side did the same a few days ago.

Again, I am sure this has discussed before, but as our 2nd Gens continue to age, I just wanted to give you lucky salty road travelers a heads up. I opted for aftermarket axles as replacements for two main reasons; cost and the lack of dampers. I have had no issues or noticable vibrations/noise/etc. Cheers!

 

Did some searching about this issue. Looks like it's fairly common and very inconvenient when it happens. Now I'm paranoid.

Is there anyway to visually check on it without taking anything apart?

 

Short of cutting the rubber parts off, which requires cutting of the stainless steel bands that hold them on, there is no.way to tell. The corrosion will be happening deep inside under the rubber insulators. Of they starting to corrode it will be obvious. The shaft can only corrode so much before an failure is likely.

 

I have a passenger side cv shaft in the back of my car for next oil change. The drivers side snapped just before thanksgiving.

 

Good idea, that is a smart move. If the drivers side snapped, the right side is surely close behind.

 

Well, that's one good thing about living in hot box Phoenix. No rust problems - just need really good A/C.

 

Definitely true. I had one snap around 200k miles. 7 years of salt killed it.

 

where do you live?

I'm in Baltimore. While we don't get a lot of snow there are a handful of salting days.

 

I'm in Nebraska and they use a ton of salt/brine.

 

So they salted the roads today in preparation for a snow storm tomorrow. While driving all I'm imagining now is the salt getting up in that dampeners and my axles slowly being eaten away by rust

 

Honda is also issuing two recalls covering 430,000 U.S. vehicles in 22 U.S. states and the District of Columbia with significant road salt use to inspect and potentially replace front drive shafts. Both are in response to possible breakage of the drive shafts due to corrosion. No injuries have been reported in relation any of the recalls, the company said.

Honda said repair parts are not available for all vehicles involved in the drive shaft recalls. The recalls cover some 2012 Honda Civic Hybrid, 2007-2014 Honda Fit, 2013-2015 Acura ILX

 

Not the axle but the driver's side rotor / caliper was heavily rusted and wouldn't pass Pennsylvania's annual vehicle safety inspections (tires, exhaust, brakes, lights, engine codes, how it drives, etc). The pile of rust (some plastic mixed in from a a jar I broke in the process) mainly came off the driver's side gear (tapping with a hammer) with the passenger side only 50% as bad.

Unseen is each rotor's internal webbing that was also damaged and thinning. Each rotor's overall thickness was well within spec but theoretically I guess the rotor could collapse under pressure at some point under certain conditions.

I had gone over everything at 50k miles and all was in good shape and appearance then. By 87k miles, it was junk mainly on the driver's side. This '11 Sport AT was my daily driver for the first 5 yrs then I transitioned to another vehicle and drove less overall. 2018-2020 period had the lowest annual mileage, so......... My theory is that the Pennsylvania salty winter snow / slush remained in contact with the brake gear longer since car sat longer between driving events in later years versus the routine 'cleaning' off they received in the earlier years.

Another theory is that after driving on our salty / slushy winter roads, the wheel wells often get filled with it and that can / does drop off when you park / temperature changes. That salty slush could have dropped off at some point after the rotors had cooled off and then remained there for days / weeks maybe even freezing together before driving again where it would get spun off and/or washed off in the rain.

The cheapest solution was a Power Stop kit off of Rock Auto. So far so good a 1000 miles later.

 

That is a crusty caliper. My 07’s never looked like that even after 200000 miles in the lake effect area of upstate NY. The rotors always look like that though especially when the caliper stops working right like yours did. Looks like the pads were probably seized in the slides.

 

I used Honda OEM pads at +50k miles change out, and the outboard pads on both wheels worked (I do lube the 'ears' with a little hi-temp caliper grease) but the inboard ones on both wheels froze up. As you can see, pressure from the piston in the pad center flexed it enough to make contact. I coast a lot up to stop signs, not a heavy brake user to begin with, so I never really felt like anything was wrong but, yes, I had less than 100% for a long time.

 

Everything is A-Ok

 

The OP started the thread about his axles and salt.

 

Spike, aren't you going to tell us about your pretty new rotors and calipers? Who made 'em? Are they the same size and spec as the OEM?

 

Here's a link for more information:

https://hondanews.com/en-US/releases...-shaft-recalls

I'm curious about how they will inspect. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that the only way to determine corrosion/rust levels is to cut away the rubber part.

 

As usual, I am a day late and a dollar short. As far as no injuries or accidents as a result of the axles snapping in half, that is hogwash. These axles will most likely fail when the vehicle begins to accelerate from a stop. But hey, at least there is a recall now.

 

*2010 Fit, live in Minnesota, enters in VIN*

There are no current safety recalls for this vehicle.

*laughs nervously*