About a week ago, my rear brakes started squealing. All the time. Obnoxious is one way to describe it.

The other day, I get out of my car to retrieve a nice Italian BMT from Subway and noticed that there is a terrible burning smell coming from my right rear wheel so I assume it's caliper tightening down on the rotor. Hooray! Today, I take it into the Honda dealership and they replace both rear rotors, pads, and say that my caliper will need to be replaced soon. The technician, whos name actually was Porky, was unable to get the caliper to expand enough to get the new pads in. He had to use a special tool to get the caliper to expand along with the help of his 2 other co-workers. This process took longer than I would have liked it to (30 minutes).

He claimed that the caliper (and excuse my lack of technical words here, guys) is "starting to seize up and will need to be replaced soon." 600 bucks! He then went on to explain that the right rear side would cause that pad to wear much quicker, and possibly mess the new rotor up.

Is this a good situation for me to spend a weekend and try to do a caliper rebuild kit? I'm a good learner and I'm not too technically and mechanically retarded. How hard is rebuild kit to do? Is it even what I need or do I just need a brand new caliper?

Thanks a lot for any information!

 

pretty much every local group has one or two guys that are very mechanically inclined to do this type of job with you. post up in your local forum and find those people and gather for an afternoon of wrenching and beer drinking.
rebuilding a caliper aint no biggie. you just gotta have the right tools to make things easier.

 

Quick bump..

 

Or you could buy a new one or remanufactured one and swap them.

 

We're talking 150 each compared to about 16 each, though. Is it that hard to do?

 

Well, no, the rebuild shouldn't be hard. Keep in mind I've never rebuilt a rear caliper on an S2000 however, the caliper rebuild kits that I have used mainly just contain new seals/O rings for the caliper.

If your rear caliper has a defective part inside it then putting new seals on the thing won't fix it at all. In which case buying a re-manufactured caliper would be the better choice. I would think you could find a re-manufactured caliper for less than $150 but I haven't priced them so I don't know.

As to the people at the dealership, why the hell did they replace so much stuff if the caliper is still the problem? All new pads and rotors and yet the one part of the equation that was causing the problem was not replaced. They should have told you to wait until you could get a new rear caliper because now you're chewing up new rotors and pads.

 

^
yea seriously.

 

Get a new mechanic!
Squeeking and he is replacing the caliper? If you had said he needed to replace the rotor maybe..but the caliper? Sounds to me like you need some new pads. Get a second mechnics opinion...in my opinion.

Utah

 

[QUOTE=Saffron,Mar 29 2007, 06:14 PM]The technician, whos name actually was Porky, was unable to get the caliper to expand enough to get the new pads in.

 

I wonder if Porky knows that our rear calipers don't compress with a C clamp?