08 Civic GX front brakes issues

[Adrian]

Re: 08 Civic GX front brakes issues

After consulting with my service dept, they say there's been no reported issues with the braking systems that they are aware of. On the other hand, they do advise that with lots of fwy stop-n-go, downhill driving, or last minute braking style drivers, they've seen people wear a set of brakes out in 12,000-15,000 miles.

Thanks for the response. Both my wife and I commute 100 miles per day in OC and LA traffic. Mornings are usually pretty good (we leave at 5:15 AM) but coming home from work definitely involves fwy stop and go even with the carpool lane access. Neither of us are last minute brakers. My car has 6k miles and my wife's 15k miles. I've also noticed that this only happens on this one hill (pretty steep). The hill is Imperial Hwy going N from Santiago Canyon to the 91 fwy on the downhill part before Nohl ranch.

Judging from the lack of other feed back, this must be a problem unique to me. I'll stop by the Honda dealer and see what they say about the GX's. As far as the Pilot is concerned, the front brakes have not been changed, the brake pads still have meat on them and it has over 60k miles. It's brakes behave similar to the GX's but not quite as bad. The fact that those pads lasted that long should attest to the fact that we are not hard on our brakes. The Pilot was driven as a daily commuter by my wife until we bought her first GX (an 01, sold since) two years ago so it has seen its share of stop and go.

[Curtis]

Re: 08 Civic GX front brakes issues

After consulting with my service dept, they say there's been no reported issues with the braking systems that they are aware of. On the other hand, they do advise that with lots of fwy stop-n-go, downhill driving, or last minute braking style drivers, they've seen people wear a set of brakes out in 12,000-15,000 miles.

If you take note, Honda's always have a nice soft feel to the brakes and tend to stop the car with little effort. I assume that they use organic pads to achieve this "nice brake feel". Organics are designed to feel good, but tend to wear faster. In my attempts to buy longer lasting pads, I've discovered that metallics tend to sound like metal-to -metal when cold and tend to destroy the rotors. Semi metallics squeel and squeek and tend to wear out rotors. The best "sound and feel" I've gotten were from the Honda pads.
As far as your cars go... I'd get them looked at if they're making noise like you describe.

[Adrian]

I've noticed this on several occasions, but have so far ignored it. Today though, it really annoyed me. While driving down hill, I had to brake from about 60 MPH to a standing stop. The front brakes on my wife's 08 Civic GX were very loud, almost a grinding sound and the entire car's front end vibrated severely. The car has 15k miles and she is not an aggressive driver, so the brake pads still have plenty of meat left on them. My 08 Civic GX behaves the same on this Hill. Come to think of it, my 2004 Honda Pilot also behaves this way. When I took my Pilot in for the first time for this problem, the dealer said my rotors were grooved as part of "normal wear". They re-surfaced them, and they have lasted well since then, though still behave sub-par during downhill braking. They are now at 61k miles and still have meat on them.

I am a previous VW driver and have to say that brakes on these new 2 GX's and my Pilot are definitely sub-par compared to a new VW. I stopped driving VW's because of constant reliability issues, and I hope Honda isn't headed in that direction. Having said that, I wonder if any of you have had issues with your Honda Civic GX brakes and what the dealer response has been. I know that if I spend over a grand on a performance braking kit, this problem will go away; I'm just annoyed that a new Honda doesn't come with better brakes.

Curtis, has anyone among your customers had a similar complaint?