How can you visually tell when you need front brake pads for the Fit? Is there a visual measurement like 1/4" remaining on the pads?

 

New, the front pads have 9.5-10.2mm of material. The service limit (minimum) is 1.6mm (.06" or 6/100").

If you're not sure, don't worry about it: the audible sensors will alert you when they need replacing (unless they've already been replaced with pads that don't have them). The noise produced when these start sounding is like metal on metal. Sounds awful. With or without the brake pedal pressed.

Inspections by dealers and brake shops tend to offer to replace the pads when they have 10s of thousands of miles of wear left...

 

Yes. When ANY part of the pad that actually contacts the rotor is less than 2 mm, or 1/12th of an inch, or about .075 inch thick the pad must be replaced or risk rotor damage or failure to slow down.
And do not use aftermarket cheap pads, aka ones that are from China..
Replace pads on both ends of an 'axle' together, not just one side and figure out why one pad is significantly more worn than the other side, say more than 2 mm difference..

 

Thank you both for your informative replies.

Yes, I recently had my 60,000 mile service and the tech/owner of the shop recommended new front pads. The pads look to be around 1/4" remaining which is plenty. I had a hunch that he was prematurely selling me on new pads.

 

I've got 80k on my '09, still on the original pads/shoes. Fortunately, I have a very honest mechanic- at 60k I thought I would need new brakes, turned out all I needed was an adjustment.

 

Once they are down between 1/8 and 1/16, swap them out.

The thinner pads are, the faster they heat up and the faster they wear.


Same principle of the lower you are on oil, the faster it heats up and gets used up

EDIT the "adjustment" is topping off the master cylinder. As the pads wear down, the fluid fills the lines more as the brake cylinder piston moves closer to the pad to take up the slack

With front disc brakes and rear drums, I would be checking the brake fluid level every 10k miles. If you swap to rear discs, I would shorten that interval a bit

 

[QUOTE=13fit;1190163]
EDIT the "adjustment" is topping off the master cylinder. As the pads wear down, the fluid fills the lines more as the brake cylinder piston moves closer to the pad to take up the slack
/QUOTE]

The rear drums are adjusted by a mechanical star wheel that comes into play when you apply the brakes while reversing. That is what the mechanic adjusted, I had not been applying the brakes enough while backing up! Now I apply the brakes several times about once a week while backing out of the garage, have not had to have any adjustments since. The neighbors are probably going "wtf is he doing?" when I do that...

 

Easy to look "through" your stock wheel "spokes" and look at the remaining pad thickness even while they are still in the caliper.

But remember one thing the ones on "inside" of the caliper wear at a faster rate then the ones you can see on the "outside".

 

You may not be guilty but other customers have mistaken the total thickness, including the back plate, to be the measure of the thickness of the braking surface pad. ITS NOT. And in any case actually measure the thickness, don't guess. We used to be shocked by customers claiming they had lots of pad left but measured an eigth and less.. I know an eigth is twice the spec limit but whenever the thickness is an eigth or less, and the car is on the lift, its cheaper to go ahead and replace then.
PS the correct measurement is caliper the whole disc brake pad thickness at its thinnest place, including the backplate, and then measure the back plate. Subtract the backplate thickness from the whole disc brake pad thickness to get the pad thickness. Running out of brakes may not be one of the most exciting things you'll ever do but it is one of the leaders in nerve wracking experiences. And expensive too. Milking that last sixteenth inch is just not worth the risk. If its truly a quarter-inch you'd be right to wait for the next service time but keep an eye on it.
cheers.
cheers.

 

Not advisable IMO. As long as your brake fluid level is between the specified lower/upper limits, leave it alone. Topping off your fluid doesn't improve stopping power and only makes a little more work when you do replace your pads. Then you'll have to siphon off some fluid to compress the pistons back enough to fit the new pads. Low brake fluid is a good indicator of pad wear.

_

 

[QUOTE=Codger01;1190173]
care is necessary with filling the brake fluid; when new pads are installed and the caliper pistonds retracted the brake fluid is pushed back to the reservoir and often spills over into the engine compartment. Not good.
We prefer to make sure the brake fluid is above the minimum and leave it there. If you have a problem then with fluid leaking or pad wear the brake light warning display signal will come on as it should.
In thed 'old' days we would start a race with just enogh brake fluid to not activate the brake light so the driver got the message before he had a desperate situation. Its not wrong to refill the brake fluid, it just requires care.
cheers.

 

I check the pad width by looking through the wheel (I have Fit sport) and kind of eye-ball how much pad material is left on the outer pad compare to the pad cover(? the portion that holds on to the pad). If the width of both is about the same, I plan on changing it/inspecting it when I have the wheels off. It's not a fool proof way because if the caliper is not freely sliding, the inner pad will wear out faster while the outer pad has plenty.

Off topic: at least on my Fit, the caliper bolt lube drys out in about couple years making the the caliper somewhat reluctant to slide. To resolve the issue, I've been taking the wheels off every summer and checking various brake components and others, while lubing where needed. The thickness for both inner and outer pads are compared then too to make sure there are about even. I also wash the wheel, front and back, to remove all the accumulated brake dust. If you enjoy doing DIY jobs on the car, brake job is one of the most worthwhile tasks to know, after the oil change.

 

[QUOTE=Codger01;1190173]... I brake reversing daily parking in the garage but at a very slow speed. Does there need to be some real resistance for this routine adjusting to work?

 

My car has 124k on the original pads. I wouldn't get in a hurry to replace them unless they are making noise.

 

hope u visually check your pad thickness and brake fluid level from time to time... for other driver's sake.

 

Yes dad I do . Actually I bought some pads awhile back but every time I check, they still have a decent amount of pad left, no noise, and the rotors look in great shape.

 

good, you dont want to turn into will's dad.