[Nateperez3]

Just curious, how many miles are you getting out of your stock brake pads? My 13 RL has almost 21,000 miles on it. Everything seems fine so far, but I know it will go in to the dealer in a few months for its next maintenance and I want to have a heads up idea on what to expect before I get it there. I don’t know much about brakes nor do I have the time to mess around with that myself, so I trust them to give me honest feedback on when things need replaced. I know this various on driving types, etc. but how many miles can I expect to get out of front and rear stock pads? I remember my accord was known to eat up rear brakes quickly and I replaced the rear pads at 25k and the front around 50 but wanted to see what everyone has seen with their RLs. I do mainly highway driving, but also some towing of my boat in the summer. Thanks for any feedback in advance!

 

[McRidgeline]

I'm fairly easy on the brakes, and I changed my rear pads first, at ~78K miles. Front pads came some time after that; can't recall exactly. Incredible, I thought. Rotors were still very flat- didn't resurface, etc. before putting on the second set of pads. And at 137,500 miles, I'm still on the second set of pads. Pretty amazing.

 

[Cashr22]

You should be able to go at least 100k on front and back with normal driving.


Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App

 

[Nateperez3]

Wow, that's amazing. I did not think it would be that long. Good to know! Now when they tell me at the dealer when I have less than 30k on the truck that I need new pads, I'm going to say......yeah, maybe next time. haha

 

[Carsmak]

100k is pretty optimistic, I've seen a few posts of members who may get that out of the fronts, rears's no way.

The rears are significantly smaller than the fronts. Many members changes the rears between 45-65k.

 

[speedlever]

Honestly, pad life will vary quite a bit depending on driving conditions and operator. I normally check mine at each tire rotation. In my normal driving (currently 98k miles), I got 75k-ish miles on the rear (they wear out first) and still have the OEM front pads. Others have had unusual wear conditions and had brake pad replacement much sooner.

While the wear limit for the pads is 1mm, I don't like to let the pad thickness get much below 2.5mm or 2.0 mm.

You should always routinely take a look at them. It's possible to have a frozen slider pin and have unusual wear occur.

 

[zroger73]

Just before I traded in my '10 with 54K miles, it still had over half the original pad material left - both front and rear. I don't tow or haul or go off road. My braking habits are on the gentle side of average.

 

[newlungs]

I recently replaced my rear pads at about 50,000 miles. The inner pads were down to the metal. The outer pads still had a bit of meat on them.

I now plan on greasing the sliders when I change the oil on the truck. Hoping that will lead to even wear on the pads.

Front pads still have plenty of surface left.

 

[rollinhonda]

I just checked the rear on mine using a mechanic's gauge. They were around 4 to 5 mm at 42K miles. I figure I will replace them at around 50k. There should still be sufficient pad but I don't like to go down any thinner.

The front are still fat and happy.

 

[interpon]

80k rear pads..about 100k front.. just changed again last week rear 180k fronts ok.. never changed rotors all good. use Akibono usa made oem. Flushed brake fluid 2014 only time..

 

[rollinhonda]

I pretty much stick to every 3 years for the brake flush.
I don't think there is a system in any vehicle that is more important to maintain.
Plus the bonus is that it is not expensive to do.

 

[zroger73]

If I had to choose the one system that I wouldn't want to fail, I'd have a tough time choosing between brakes or steering.

 

[laserguy]

I got about 104k miles on my fronts, I used them to the limit with almost no pad left on them, the rears had 4 mm left when I changed them at the same time I did the fronts, I estimate the rears had over 40k miles since I got this truck, with 4 mm left, probably another 10- 20k miles left on the rears if I did not change them.

 

[speedlever]

Yep. I estimate around 9k to 10k miles per mm of rear brake wear in my driving. My wife's Pilot only gets around 50k miles on a set of pads for some reason.

Since I have yet to replace my OEM front pads, I don't know what the wear rate is on them. The RL obviously has rear brake bias which has been discussed numerous times.

 

[rollinhonda]

If I had to choose the one system that I wouldn't want to fail, I'd have a tough time choosing between brakes or steering.

I thought of that too. Along that line, I think brakes fail more often, plus they can fade enough to cause an accident if even still functional.

Catastrophic steering failure is rare I suspect. If it does fail you REALLY need your brakes in most cases, anyway. *and vice versa*

Hard steering due to poor maintenance (or a broken drive belt) not so much. Again, maintenance is not brain surgery or expensive.

Probably the most dangerous scenario (most expensive too..) is being stuck in an intersection or railroad tracks when the engine seizes...Murphy's Law says you recently had a brake job done under those conditions.

 

[MikeVT]

The OEM pads work good new. The problem I'm have is the bracket corrode and swell under the anti-rattle clips. When this starts happening the pads lock up and wear FAST!. I have yet to find a fix. I have painted, greased, shot blasted, etc the bracket but here in our VT winter The salt gets to be too much.

Anyone else having the same issue? UP here its common on just about all models of Honda for some reason.

Thinking about leaving the clips out and see what happens.

 

[eurban]

You could look into the 09-15 Pilot (MDX of certain years too) front brakes to see if people are having the same issues with those. Have any buddies / co workers with Pilots? The rotors and caliper will bolt onto the Ridgeline and are marginally larger than the stock Ridgeline pieces. . .Those who have swapped over report improved braking.

My guess would be that Honda uses a similar system but who knows? Regardless, it might somehow be less prone to the issues that you are having.

 

[Ian Brantford]

Brake wear varies greatly with usage. I had to change my rear pads for the first time at 25000km. Yes, kilometres, not miles. It turns out that I was doing a lot of light braking with city driving, and in trucks, the rear brakes engage before the fronts in case there is a load in the bed to control.

The second set of rear pads lasted 75000km (47K miles), or triple the distance in similar conditions. All that I did was to change my habits, anticipating stops earlier and coasting more. Often coasting even results in timing traffic lights better so that there is no need to touch the brakes. This works very well in traffic conditions of anything better than stop-and-go. Even for stop-and-go traffic, I found that I could cut the frequency of short movements by half and not have others darting in front of me.