I actually did this job a month ago, but haven't found the time to post a thread about it until tonight.

At about 57K miles, my rear brake pads needed to be replaced. I opted for the Raybestos Ceramic Quiet Stops.



And since I was replacing the rears, I went ahead and replaced the fronts with the same pads. If I were going to stay with the same pads on the rear, I wouldn't have touched the fronts.

If I've heard correctly, the OEM pads on our HAHs are already ceramic. Which I guess is evident in that I've never really had too much of brake dust buildup on the wheels. I'm under the impression that the Raybestos are of higher quality than OEM, and that's why I decided to switch. But for all I know, the OEMs are just as good. I did a price comparison in another thread on these forums (I don't remember which, but it's out there) and the prices between them are pretty close. So I guess it comes down to personal preference. For the Raybestos, I paid Checker Auto Parts $78.28 plus tax, after my 10% discount.

 

Safety is paramount. Make certain you take every safety precaution. Remember that these are only my experiences and may not match your skill or car. Please use what I post as a reference only.

If you're attempting this job, I'm sure I don't have to describe how to lift the car (and use jackstands!) and remove the wheels. So we'll skip that part.

I really like how Honda has made cutouts in the rotors so you can easily measure the pad thicknesses. This is the first car I've owned that I've been able to do so.

The service limit for front brake pads is 1.6 mm (0.06 in). Only measure the pad material, not to include the pad backing plate themselves. The service manuals says standard thickness is 10.5 to 11.5 mm, so 1.6 mm is about 10%.

Here are my front pads:



As you can see, at 57K, I had plenty of material left. I actually find that very strange, as I've never had a vehicle have the fronts outlast the rears, as approximately 70% of the stopping power is from the front wheels. Even with the beefier front pads/rotors, I still find it odd that they're near new in thickness and the rears are almost completely exhausted.

 

The service manual states the service limit of the rear pads to be 1.6 mm also. But their standard thickness is 8.9 to 9.1 mm.

Although a little blurry, here are my rear pads:



It is hard to see, but the pad material is very low.

 

For some reason, I guess I forgot to take a picture of the thickness of the rear pads. But here are a few shots of the fronts.

This one shows about 8 mm left on the fronts:





Here's the fronts side by side new and old:





And the new pads measure in at approximately 17.5 mm, well above the OEM 10.5 to 11.5 mm:





I once read somewhere that OEM parts, such as brake parts and tires, are manufactured smaller to reduce the unsprung weight of the car. They do this by making the brake pads/rotors and tire tread/sidewalls narrower. This gives the car an extra MPG or two on the window sticker. Anyone else heard of that, and/or can confirm it?

 

So anyways, the first thing to do is remove the brake hose mounting bolt. It's a single hex head bolt. Although a bit blurry, here's a pic of what it looks like after you take the mounting bolt out:

 

Then to remove the front caliper to replace the brake pads, it's just one bolt on the bottom of the rotor. Take that bolt out and the whole caliper rotates upwards and gives you quite a bit of room to pull the old pads out and put the new pads in.

The new brake pads should come with grease. At least mine did. It even gave a picture of what parts of the pads to grease to help eliminate brake squeal. If you didn't get grease in your package, get some. If you didn't get a picture, apply grease to areas on the pad backings that come into contact with something else. Such as the tabs on the ends and where the shims mount on. Speaking of shims, if the new pads didn't come with any, reuse the old shims. These Raybestos came with shims preinstalled.

After seating your pads into the correct slots, recheck to make sure!

 

Since the new pads are going to be thicker, you need to push the pistons back into the calipers so that they'll fit onto the new brake pads.

First thing is to open up the brake fluid cap under the hood. When you push on the pistons, the brake fluid has to go somewhere.

I like to wrap a rag around the opening to catch any fluid that spills out:

 

I spray down the rubber boot around the piston with brake cleaner to remove the grime that's built up around it. Then I use one of the old pads, and a caliper brake piston tool, and push the piston in:

 

After the piston is pushed in, remove the tool and old pad. Then swing the caliper back down onto the new pads.

Next, replace the bolt you removed earlier from the bottom of the caliper. This bolt is torqued to 26 lb-ft.

Then replace the brake hose mounting bolt and torque to 2.2 lb-ft.

Replace the wheel, torquing the lug nuts to 80 lb-ft. Then do the same to the other side!

 

To do the rear brakes is very similar to the front. The differences are, the rear calipers don't pivot like the front. So after removing the brake hose mounting bolt and removing both calipers, be sure to have something under the car to rest the caliper on, so no pressure is exerted on the brake hose/fittings.

To remove the bolts that hold the rear caliper in place, you need an open end or crescent wrench. I prefer to use open end wrenches, but didn't have one in the right size. Apply it to the inner pin while being careful not to pinch the boots. Then the socket wrench goes on the outside bolt: